On my way to work every day, I am bumped around and juggled about as the car moves through Jeddah’s potholed and unmaintained streets. This is not a nice experience, mind you, as I cannot concentrate on anything while I am being juggled about in the back seat. Certainly trying to read under such conditions will only make me dizzy and probably give me a headache as well. Now, I certainly don’t expect our roads and streets to be as smooth as silk; I live here and have a good idea of what to expect.
I have noticed, however, that the same streets I drive on every day are always blocked off for some kind of construction. There is always some sign saying that there is work being done by the electricity company, sewage or telephone companies — or maybe, I sometimes think, just some random digging in hope of finding more oil!
Now I do not mind the municipality’s fixing the problems we have with our phone cables or sewage pipes. I just notice that the problems never seem to be solved; they are ongoing and whatever is being done is never completed. We are faced with a series of digging and patching-up processes that goes on non-stop the whole year.
One day one of these companies wants to do something in the middle of the street so they dig it up and disrupt the traffic for days. Why complain? Of course, they are only doing their job. After the initial digging has been done, it takes about a month or so for someone in the company to remember that there is some unfinished business in the street and so they start digging again. And so it goes.
It seems that our streets are always in a state of being repaired and being dug up. When we talk about filling in the holes — talk only — we can do little beyond advising drives to accept that the street will never return to the way it was and that they must drive slowly and carefully. Because of all the diggings and patchings, the streets have become a chessboard — without of course the smoothness of a chessboard.
What does the state of our roads and streets reflect? Bad planning? Or no planning? Why can’t those in charge produce a long-term plan for any work that needs to be done on the streets so that everything is fixed in one go? How sensible and logical that would be! Does not this constant work cost money and effort that could be better utilized if directed to other projects?
And just why is it that the big streets in posh areas never seem to suffer from the “digging-up” syndrome? The streets in those areas are always smooth and clear. Is it the fate of less fortunate districts? One hopes not.
