Posts Tagged ‘traffic’
Friday, February 27th, 2009
These are my links for February 25th through February 27th:
Tags: Cairo, carbon, Egypt, EmergencyLaw, energy, environment, Gaza, geography, humor, Israel, linguistics, maps, MiddleEast, Mubarak, NOLA, Palestine, pollution, protests, sprawl, theEconomy, traffic, urbanStudies, violence, war, Zionism, إنتفاضة, تضامن
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Sunday, January 6th, 2008
Well, I had my first real bike wreck in Cairo today. I don’t count a previous incident which involved just me, my bike, the pavement and some poorly executed fancy maneuvers to fix a loose cog on the fly. In terms actual injuries, however, this is rather less severe than the latter. (more…)
Tags: biking, traffic
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Friday, November 9th, 2007
A couple days ago I had a horrible time getting to school on Qasr Al-Aini St., my usual route to school. The road was completely gridlocked for many blocks, and I had rather a hard time getting through the tightly packed cars. I had originally thought that it had something to do with overall traffic chaos as a result of football fans rushing to buy up tickets to the final match of the African Champions League (taking place today), but I learned later that it was because of the inaugural session of Egypt’s Parliament, located off of Qasr Al-Aini. Al-Masry Al-Youm had an article about the impact of such sessions on the local traffic, traffic which I’ve discussed here extensively. It turns out they halt traffic to allow representatives to cross the street, but for long stretches of time. I don’t generally pay much mind to the traffic cops since, unlike drivers, they have no particular leverage over me, but the article mentions the impact on pedestrians as well. I generally take my cues from other cyclists, most of whom, like pedestrians, will cross roads where there is space to do so, no matter what the traffic police are telling the cars to do. I wonder if perhaps I’m not being a bit too cavalier when it comes to government representatives.
Tags: biking, traffic, transportation, walking
Posted in Masr —مصر | 1 Comment »
Sunday, November 4th, 2007
Here’s another attempt at filming my daily commute, to and from school (down Qasr Al-Eini—قصر العيني and back on the Corniche—الكورنيش). This one is not as crooked as the last, but rather more shaky. The traffic is a bit more exciting, though. More pedestrians, more wheelchairs, more crazy drivers, more horns, more cabbies absentmindedly sticking their arms out the window (another reason to plug those bar ends!), more greetings with the bawab (doorman), more close-up shots of my nostrils. Good times!
Tags: biking, traffic
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Thursday, November 1st, 2007
This was a bit of an experiment. I decided to see what would happen if I strapped my little digital camera to the shoulder of my messenger bag. Below is evidence of what happened. The video came out alright, and you can get a sense of what it’s like biking downtown, but it is tilted at a 45º angle to the left. I hope you don’t get a crick in your neck trying to watch this. Luckily, as you will see, it documents only my ride from home (you’ll hear me say good morning to the security guard downstairs) to the AUC campus, which, as it turns out, is only 4 1/2 minutes. Unfortunately, you can also generally only see to my left, which leaves something to be desired. My shirt sleeve also covered up part of the lens in the wind. A much better video is available here. (more…)
Tags: biking, traffic, transportation
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