It is a shiny new option, but residents wonder if the money might have been better used on aging buses and trains
By Menna FAROUK / AFP, CAIRO
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below.The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people.“It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.”
A monorail train operates in the new administration capital east of Cairo on May 22 as part of the government’s megaprojects and efforts to expand green mass transit.
The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class district of Nasr City to the New Administrative Capital, a sprawling US$58 billion megacity in the desert east of Cairo.A second 43km western line, from the Nile’s west bank to 6th of October City beyond the Giza pyramids, is under construction.
