Urban Transport in the OIC Megacities

4.2.3.

Land use and urban form

4.2.3.1.

Introduction

Cairo is dense and for most part compact within the built-up area. Key land use and urban form issues

are:



Trips are relatively short - 50% of the population live within 15Km of the Ramses

Square/Downtown Cairo



Informal areas represent 39% of the Greater Cairo built up area and 17% of the Greater Cairo

gross area. They contain 63% of the total urban population in 2008 (around 11 million of Greater

Cairo 17.3 million inhabitants).



Historical Cairo occupies significant portions in the central core.



New Cities in desert areas occupy 2.2 times the current Cairo built-up area and house only less

than 5% of population (800,000 inhabitants). Average daily commuting times are more than 60

minutes particularly to new cities.



The countries’ pivotal urban functions for economic and social activities are predominately

accumulated in GCR. The number of Public Institutions in GCR = 22% of the national total. The

total number of buildings in GCR = 40% of the national total. Total in movements of Licensed

Vehicles = 42% of the national total. The Higher Educational function = 50% of the national total.



Non-uniform distribution of urban populations: Low income housing is away from job

opportunities and high income housing is away from business opportunities.

Informal settlements:

Close to 65% of inhabitants of GCR are living in informal settlements.

Informal areas absorb additional population and generate most jobs, economic activities and services.

They are mostly good locations close to urban boundary and more than 55% of vehicle trips are

minibus trips in informal housing areas. The image below shows an example Cairo Informal area:

Figure 21: Informal housing area in Cairo

Source: Consultant

NewCities in the Greater Cairo Area

25 new cities are proposed in Egypt, 5 of these are in the Cairo

region and 3 to 4 are currently under design. These are huge areas with huge investments but so far

uptake is slower than envisioned and there are large travel distances involved with reliance on the car

in the absence of planned public transport systems (Source Prof Khaled Al Araby 2013).