Reducing Traffic With Underground Parking Lots?

Cairo traffic jam (cc photo by tronics)

David Kenner:

Via the invaluable Boursa Exchange, I see that the Egyptian government is contemplating a redevelopment plan in downtown Cairo which would transform the area into a pedestrian-only area. This plan has been commissioned by Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, and envisions the construction of “multi-story underground garages” to eliminate traffic and pave the way for the creation of an area of open-air restaurants and shops.

Creating a pedestrianized plaza may or may not be a good idea. And obviously you won’t have a traffic jam on a pedestrian-only street. But overall this sounds like a recipe for making Cairo’s traffic problems worse. You’re talking, after all, about adding a vast quantity of parking spaced. I can’t exactly picture what this scheme is supposed to look like, but it sounds like you’ll have very-congested underground roadways connecting a vast complex of underground garages. If you want to reduce traffic congestion in a crowded urban area, you really need to do congestion pricing. Nothing else will work over the long run. In general, I would say that any city that contains a substantial non-car-owning population (and I believe Cairo, in relatively poor Egypt fits the bill) could benefit a lot from the following formula:

1. Replace auto lanes with bus lanes and protected bike lanes.
2. Implement congestion pricing.
3. Use revenue from (2) to pay for (1)—and make the bus system good.
4. Start getting people to plan options and scenarios for heavy rail.

This kind of thing is very dicey if you get to the point where 90 percent of people are driving to work every morning. But in places where that’s not the case, this is clearly the way to go and auto-oriented policies are massively regressive in their impact.