By Ahmed Tarek Alahwal & Omar Aboutaleb*

0.0 Introduction

Cities around the world are embracing cycling as a clean and efficient mode of mobility as well as one that supports co-existence, democratized streets, and citizenship. In Egypt, cycling is much needed in the contested space of the overly dense, polluted and traffic-choked cities to compensate for the increasing pressure on roads and public transportation. The demand for cycling-inclusive streets has been growing with the constant growth of the cycling groups and communities that are mainly recreational but also support commuting purposes. The Egyptian central government has recently launched an initiative that aims at increasing bicycle ownership under the slogan “a bicycle for every citizen.” (darraja l-kol mowaten) (Hosni 2019).

Investments in cycling infrastructure are pushed either by local governments, especially in the Egyptian new cities, by civil society and international organizations such as the case in Shebin-el-Kom, Fayoum city, and Downtown Cairo, or in private real-estate developments such as El Gouna resort town or the residential gated communities in Cairo suburbs. However, these efforts are supported by a legal infrastructure that is vague at best, and non-existent in many aspects, causing fragmentation of work, ambiguity, and lack of recognition for the rights of cyclists as street-users. The ambitions of making cycling mainstream, with the “a bicycle for every citizen” initiative, are obstructed by the challenges that cyclists meet on the road. Although societies are dynamically at different departure points achieving their own cycling culture, many cycling physical and soft treatments tend to act as “one-size-fits-all” (Montero 2015, Vivanco 2013, p.67-69) that disregard the fact of each context having its own “transition pathway.” It becomes problematic to replicate the global north models in cycling, especially in the Egyptian context where government, donors, and funding organizations control and constrain cyclists’ movement through top-down policies. (Zuev et al. 2021, p.214).

Zuev et al. (2021) states that “law and regulations determine the terms and conditions for cycling mobility; as they can restrict potentials and impose limitations.” They then describe the administrative-legal levels through four hierarchical levels of international, European, national, regional, and local. (Zuev et al. 2021, p.24). The paper aims to review the legal aspects of urban cycling in Egyptian law and draws recommendations from a comparative international perspective on the topic. The main objective is to investigate the recognition of the bicycle commuters’ rights in Egyptian streets and the possibilities to promote cycling as a mode of mobility within the Egyptian legal frameworks. Therefore, the paper reviews the rights and responsibilities of the cycling commuters in Egyptian streets and discusses the relationship between cycling and other means of mobility in Egyptian cities and the possible conflicts or collaborations that might occur between the cyclists and other street users or vehicles in the Egyptian context (e.g., buses, cars, tuk-tuks, animal-drawn carts, pedestrians, etc.). (Waters, 2012).

This paper covers three main directions: (1) the social justice rationale for laws, (2) the laws of cycling traffic, planning, and finance, and (3) law enforcement. For the rationale and enforcement, this paper builds on analysis of interviews done with bicycle users and officials regarding cycling infrastructure projects they were affiliated with. The authors listed 24 cycling infrastructure projects in Egypt in the last 10 years, and studied 10 of them, where the interviews were conducted. For the laws’ part, content analysis is done of the current laws in Egypt and globally covering the topics of cycling traffic rules, planning, and financing.

The results show that compared to other countries that aim to support cycling, Egyptian cycling-related laws are quite limited. However, much of the crucial existing laws supporting cycling in Egypt are not applied to political and social obstacles. The research shows the importance of both introducing legislation and including the discussion of such legislation in public debates and advocacy.

1.0 Humanist and Social Justice Legal Rationale

Industrialization and urbanization as global phenomena have created pressures on urban transport regimes to accommodate the rapid expansion of cities, and the increasing number of immigrants from rural to urban contexts. In order to cope with these landscape changes, regimes, reinforced by political will, reacted in more car-oriented approaches, including creating suburban peripheries, expanding motor infrastructure, embedding laws, binding contracts, and regulating to help coherently solidify, manage and operate these interventions. This resulted in techno-institutional complexities. Consequently, the investments in infrastructure are not easily abandoned nor substituted, which creates techno-economic complexities while societies in return adapt their lifestyle to the systems. The accumulation of these complexities has given the existing socio-technical systems incremental stability, complexity, and ground over time. That contributed to creating a momentum of “path dependence” and “lock-in” for such car-oriented systems. (Geels, 2005). Along the process, injustices have occurred to the vulnerable bike users (niches of the systems) who get exposed to pollutants and accidents. The injustice increases especially for low-income people that utilize cycling as an important mobility tool for their daily survival with little money. (Golub et al., 2016). Despite bicycles’ vitality in the city, modern transport planning has been overlooking non-motorized transportation, including pedestrians and bike users, unequally focusing on motorised planning. Moreover, the widespread symbolism of bicycles as kids’ toys or as sporting goods are at least partially responsible for this situation, which makes it more difficult to take them seriously as a site of technological innovation or as a viable form of transportation. (Vivanco, 2013, p;128).

In many cities, there is a mismatch between motorized infrastructure and non-motorized infrastructure where most road spaces are for motor traffic. This is because -unlike cars, most cities are not socially nor spatially developed around prioritising mass cycling use as a transport solution. Urban forms (in terms of distances, densities, and land use), policies, and public investments were, and are still developed to accommodate and utilize cars as a main transport solution that eventually lead to marginalization and injustice to bicycles. (Vivanco, 2013, p.61-62).

Bicycle use and infrastructure can serve emancipatory purposes for those in need of an almost costless transportation mode, or it can serve increased inequality and gentrification. (Golub et al., 2016). Providing for bicycle users on the rationale of social justice requires that the good that is provided or distributed is being considered a social good. To compare cycling with this logic, cycling itself could not in many contexts fit itself with this logic, but it serves other goods that are considered universally a social good. These goods could be accessibility, health, air quality, or social interaction. (Martens et al., 2016). As part of our research, we interviewed representatives of public, private, and civil society organizations, who were responsible and involved in building infrastructure projects. The interviews described the goal of their projects differently. Although some projects were targeted to serve accessibility and bicycle use for transport, many projects were targeted at use for sports or leisure. (Alahwal, 2021b). In his latest campaign, president El Sisi sponsored the “Your Bike Your Health” initiative to encourage youths to take the bike as a healthy and economic transportation option. (State Information System 2021). Through our observation, the leisure goals conflicted with transport in two ways. First, in some locations, the leisure infrastructure was not used by transport cyclists, as it did not match their needs for easily turning into other streets other than the one where a bicycle path is installed. In several cases, the leisure bicycle paths were installed as a straight line strongly separated from the car movement, but also separated and isolated from surrounding streets. Second, most of the cycling infrastructure built in Egypt is built in low density suburban communities with low rates of bicycle use. In contrast, other areas with high transport bicycle use were neglected. (Alahwal, 2021c). These conflicts call for laws and enforcement that factors into account these concerns, especially about planning and financing laws.

2.0 Traffic Laws

Two main legal theories direct traffic laws related to bicycles: vehicular cycling and segregated cycling. Vehicular cycling theory treats a bicycle like a vehicle and builds on the notion that all vehicles that use the same road should have the same rights and duties. This rationale is rooted in laws from the beginning of the 20th century, when cycling advocates called for bicycles to have equal rights as horse-drawn carriage. However, the gap of vulnerability between the bicycle and the contemporary car is much bigger than the gap between the bicycle, and early 20th century carriages. Hence, much contemporary advocacy highlights that equal treatment of cars and bicycles is unsuitable for the protection of the more vulnerable bicycle users, whose responsibility to causing injury in accidents is less than that of car users. Moreover, even within laws that treat bicycles as vehicles, contradictions exist. Extra rules are enforced on bicycle users that are not enforced on car users, such as riding on the right side of the roads or mandatory helmet laws (Tekle, 2017).

On the other hand, segregated cycling theory becomes more evident as laws increase their differing treatment between bicycles and vehicles. The recognition of a bicycle’s vulnerability is evident in laws that call for segregated and specific infrastructure for bicycles and their protection. (Tekle, 2017).

The Egyptian traffic law (law 66, 1973) mentions bicycles and hand-drawn carts as vehicles, but its drivers are exempt from obtaining a driving licence. However, the law differentiates between fast transport vehicles and slow transport vehicles that are human or animal powered (bicycles and carts). Worth mentioning, cycling licences are not something extraordinary in the Arab world. In Iraq for example, legal cycling licences were given to bike users after a legal compliance check (figure 1).

Figure 1: a legal cycling license given to a student Iraqi citizen who is aged 16.

2.1 Right to Use Streets

Over time, the relevant public opinion about cycling oscillates between whether they have the right to the street as a street user or if they deserve it if they are hit in a road crash for endangering themselves. With the emergence of bicycle users, courts had to investigate whether bicycles are allowed to use different types of streets. Access through specific roads or points of passage can be restricted against bicycle users, such as borders that allow passage to vehicles but not bicycles (Waters, 2012), or in some cases, highways. (Oregon Department of Transportation, 2011).

The Vienna Convention for Road Traffic of 1968, established in international law that bicycles have the rights of road vehicles and bicycle users have the rights of vehicle operators. Although the convention was signed by around 150 countries, Egypt did not sign on the convention. The Egyptian Traffic law (law 66, 1973) only prohibits the use of bicycles on main roads for children under eight years old.

2.2 Bicycle Road Rules

In some cases, especially early examples, bicycles were treated like a carriage or road automobile, and it is explicitly mentioned in the law that bicycle users are expected to follow the same rules as car users in the street. While in other cases bicycles are regarded as on a different level in the street vehicle hierarchy, with either less strict application of road rules, or with independent road rules specific for them. In some cases, the situation of bicycles is ambiguous and not explicit in the law. (Waters, 2012).

2.2.1 The Idaho Stop/Rolling Stop

The Idaho stop is an example of a less strict application of road rules to bicycles than cars (figure 2).

Source: (Cieslewicz 2014). The Idaho stop means that bicycle users can treat stop signs as yield signs, based on them being less dangerous on the road. (Waters, 2012).

2.2.2 Where to Ride

Laws that do not tackle the issue of segregated cycling infrastructure usually require bicycle users to ride only on the right end of the road (in countries driving to the right). (Tekle, 2017). In the case of the Egyptian Traffic law (law 66, 1973), bicycles are required to ride on the right side of the road, except in the case of the existence of bicycle paths. In that case, bicycles are required not to leave the bicycle paths.

2.2.3 Bicycle Rider Behavior

The Dutch and German laws prohibit cycling while talking on the phone. (Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions, 2021) & (Quelle, 2020). The Egyptian Traffic law (law 66, 1973) prohibits bicycle users from cycling using one or no hands on the steering, holding onto a moving vehicle, and holding cargo in their hands or on their heads while riding. The law restricts bicycle users from carrying cargo that obstructs traffic flow and carrying someone else on the bicycle unless they are above 16 years old, and the bicycle has a space for another person to sit.

2.3 Conflict with Other Users

2.2.1 Parking on Bicycle Paths

Conflict laws include penalizing automobile users that use bicycle dedicated paths. The Egyptian Traffic law (law 66, 1973) explicitly prohibits vehicles from parking on bicycle paths. The enforcement of the law is dependent on several factors described below in the enforcement section.

2.2.2 Safe Distance

Another common regulation is a mandatory distance between car users and bicycle users (Waters, 2012). The safety (takeover) distance in German law is 1.5 meters in urban areas and 2 meters outside them. (Quelle, 2020).

2.2.3 Liability

Liability legislation is a principle that a motor vehicle driver is always liable in the case of colliding with a bicycle user. The law protects bicycle users who are more vulnerable to damage than users of heavy vehicles and therefore evens out the liability consequences of the crash. In Dutch law, strict liability means that pedestrians and bicycle users are weaker participants in traffic, and motorists are held strictly liable for injuries resulting from crashes with bicycle users and pedestrians. If a driver could reasonably foresee the crash, they are totally liable. If they could prove that the weaker user is to blame, the driver still holds part of the liability. (Maker, 2015).

2.2.4 Intermodality

Interaction laws include regulating and allowing bicycles to be carried on trains (Waters, 2012). The Egyptian railway company does not specifically regulate bicycles. However, train inspectors usually allow bicycle transport, when treated as a “package,” given a package ticket, that is left for the train inspector to evaluate. Inspectors say evaluation depends on the trip distance and train class. (Alahwal, 2021a).

2.2.5 Riding Side by Side

The Dutch law prohibits more than two bicycles riding side to side, the German prohibits more than one. (Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions, 2021) & (Quelle, 2020). The Egyptian Traffic law (law 66, 1973) prohibits more than one bicycle to ride side by side.

2.4 Cycling Gear

Gear that is mandated by law for bicycle users, including lights, helmets, and brakes. (Waters, 2012).

2.4.1 Helmets

The inclusion of bicycle helmets in law is a contested subject, especially within the public health sphere, with opinions and studies for and against. On one hand, medical data show that helmets save from injuries and death in individual cases of bicycle crashes. On the other hand, studies show that a helmet law is problematic. The first reason is that it is a disincentivizing factor to bicycle use. Mandatory helmet use laws cause a decrease in bicycle use, and studies have shown that the health risks related to low physical activity because of decreased bicycle use, outweigh the health risks of the brain and head injuries through bicycle crashes. The decrease of bicycle users also decreases road safety, which is dependent on a large number of users. The second reason is that helmet laws detract and distract from needed measures, such as infrastructure provision, which achieves road safety for bicycle users. Other reasons include that helmet laws cause problems for bike share programs and add costs to cycling, which disproportionately affects poorer users.

2.4.2 Lights and Bell

The Egyptian Traffic law (law 66, 1973) requires bicycles to have a white or yellow front light with a range of 10 metres, and a red or orange backlight, as well as a bell.

2.4.3 Brakes

The Egyptian Traffic law (law 66, 1973) requires bicycles to include at least one hand administered brake, which excludes bicycles with only pedal brakes or with no brakes (fixed gear). The Vienna Convention requires a bike to have efficient brakes without specifying how (United Nations, 1968) brakeless (fixed gear) bicycles could also conflict with other road laws, such as the Canadian highway code that requires vehicles on the highway to have brakes. (Waters, 2012).

2.4.4 Cargo

The Traffic law (1971) requires cargo bike boxes not to exceed 120 centimeters in width, and for the whole cargo bicycle with or without cargo to not exceed the dimensions of 250 cm in length, 150 cm in width, and 120 cm in height.

2.5 Bicycle Characteristics and Definition

The Vienna Convention describes a bicycle as a human-powered vehicle with at least two wheels (United Nations, 1968). The Egyptian Traffic Law (law 66, 1973) is more specific and defines a bicycle as a vehicle with two or more wheels that is human-powered, targeted at transporting people, and could serve to transport cargo if a box is annexed to it. The law also requires that the main bicycle frame be built in steel (unlike contemporary alloy bicycles), made in one piece, and not connected through screws or bolts, which excludes folding bikes.

2.6 Temporary Events

Open streets is a description of events where there is a temporary change in streets to accommodate pedestrians and bicycle users and restrict cars. The events got a legal framework in New York when a bill was designed to make the Department of Transportation responsible for operating the program as well as facilitating and prescribing a legal path through which local community organizations could apply to hold their own open street days. (Kuntzman, 2021).

3.0 Planning Laws

Cycling infrastructure laws can target a wide range of elements, from on-road infrastructure (paths and intersection treatments, and signs), to parking facilities, traffic calming, land use and densities, as well as intermodality facilities implemented on public transportation. On a conceptual level, some laws require that streets should provide safety for all road users, including bicycle users and pedestrians, sometimes being more specific, through suggesting “the principles of complete streets” to be applied. Other laws specify more, either on the nature of street or network interventions, or on the locations where interventions should be applied. (Waters, 2012). Design guidelines are produced on city and state levels, with varying levels of being legally binding.

In Egypt, the only mandatory legislation that tackles the issue of cycling infrastructure is the Egyptian Code for Urban Roads and Highway Works (ECURHW, 1998). The code is one of several codes that are considered mandatory according to law number 6 for the year 1964, titled Law of the Basis and conditions of Executing Structural and Building Works. The law mentions that ministries, public agencies, public institutions, following companies, and local councils must design and execute structural, and building works they perform according to codes approved by the minister of housing (law 6, 1964).

3.1 Street Design Codes and Regulations

3.1.1 Cycling Paths

Regulations to include bicycle paths appeared from the beginning of the 20th century. Some laws are targeted at prescribing a type of street intervention in varying levels of detail, such as a rule that all highways should have a paved shoulder. While other cases are targeted at certain locations, such as acts for roads leading to schools. (Waters, 2012).

City scale design guidelines can prescribe rules for bicycle path size, type of separation, material use, and factor the choice to a categorization of streets based on location, size, or traffic volume and speed (Oregon Department of Transportation, 2011) (City of Copenhagen, 2013).

The ECURHW specifies that when the annual average daily traffic (AADT) of bicycles in each road exceeds 500 bicycle users, then dedicated bicycle paths should be provided. The code also specifies that the space that should be allocated for bicycles should be 1.10 meter wide. The code describes three levels of bicycle paths: (1) paths separated by level or distance from car traffic, (2) paths separated by bollards or paint, or mixed bicycle, and (3) car traffic with signs for bicycle use. However, the code does not specify the conditions in which every path should be applied.

The rule of providing dedicated bicycle paths when the AADT exceeds 500 is rarely applied. The author has measured bicycle numbers on roads in Assiut, Sohag, Cairo, and Shebin, which exceeded the code’s benchmark. In addition, through interviews with officials in the October municipality, they mentioned that the code is not applied according to their knowledge. (Alahwal, 2021e).

3.1.2 Intersections and Traffic Lights

Intersections are the spaces in the road where road users must cross each other’s paths. The guidelines of the city of Copenhagen (2013) mention that most accidents in Copenhagen happen in intersections and explain several treatments for bicycles at intersections. This generally targets the goal that bicycle users are visible to vehicles. Among the treatments is banning car parking for a distance before intersections (10 meters in Copenhagen, five meters in Germany). (Quelle, 2020). Other rules include the set back of the stop line for cars at intersections to be behind the bicycle stop line (five meters in Copenhagen), dedicated bicycle traffic lights at a lower level, and pre-green lights for bicycle users before car users. Additionally, the bicycle “right-turn on red” is under test in Copenhagen to be approved by the police. (City of Copenhagen, 2013).

3.1.3 Speed

Reduced speed limits are a measure to be achieved for community safety zones. Several cities implement 30 km/hr maximum speed zones to achieve safety for bicycle users and pedestrians. The Danish Road standard has a four-level category for street speeds, where low speed (30-30 km/hr) is the standard for local roads, and areas with larger building frontage or crossing needs should have lower speeds. (Herrstedt, 1994).

The ECURHW specifies that some traffic calming should be applied in dense urban areas. But the code does not specify which desired speeds should traffic calming target, nor how to define dense urban areas where the measures should be implemented, nor does it give guidelines for traffic calming measures. The code only specifies target design speeds on freeways and not in local urban streets.

3.4 Cycling Masterplans

An empirical visionary example of a holistic intervention on the national level is the Dutch National Master Plan that lasted for seven years and influenced finances, evaluation, policies, and infrastructure for the bicycle in the Netherlands. (Noordzij & Blokpoel 1997). On the European level, the most recent progress is the “Pan-European Master Plan for Cycling Promotion,” where the expertise and the experiences of 28 pan-European countries were brought together in 2014 and finally declared in 2021. The chairman of the Transport-Health-Environment Pan-European Programme summarized the aim of this guide as follows:

“…It will support all countries in the pan-European region in their efforts to promote cycling, develop national master-plans, strategies and to launch investment programmes for cycling and cycling infrastructure.” (WHO, 2021).

4.0 Financing Laws

Cycling infrastructure projects in Egypt, done by public entities, have largely been a part of a street upgrading project, and funded through the same fund of street upgrade. There are two exceptions. The first is the “Mamsha ahl Masr ” project, which targets the upgrade of Nile banks with pedestrian and recreation spaces as well as bike lanes. The second is a group of projects following a policy by the New Urban Communities Agency (NUCA), that funded cycling paths through development exactions. Projects funded by the private sector have always been within gated communities or universities. Other projects in non-gated locations were funded by civil society organisations (mainly the United Nations Development Programme – UNDP and the UN-Habitat) (Alahwal, 2021c). Other than that, there are no projects involving taxes, laws, or public-private partnerships in Egypt that are targeted at financing cycling infrastructure.

However, various legal instruments for local finance could be used to build or improve cycling infrastructure. These could be grouped into the following categories: (1) Land Value Capture tools (development exactions, betterment levies, and sale of development rights); (2) Fees and Charges (congestion charges, parking fees, high occupancy toll lanes, and building permits); and (3) Property Tax. (Merk, 2012).

In this section, we discuss how these tools are being used globally to finance cycling infrastructure and how they are currently used in Egypt to fund road infrastructure.

4.1 Land Value Capture

Land Value Capture (LVC) tools, target capturing the increment of land value due to publicly funded improvement projects. In the case of mobility, the increment would result from the improved accessibility that results from mobility projects or density increase that leads to increased land value. (Medda, 2012). LVC has been connected to financing sustainable mobility; cycling infrastructure, transit stations and infrastructure, as well as compactness. (Suzuki, Murakami, Hong, Tamayose, 2015).

In Egypt, two LVC tools are being used in connection to road improvement: Betterment Levies, and Development Exactions. Additionally, the sale of development rights is used in relation to densification. (UN-Habitat, 2015). Betterment Levies are the only tool prescribed in law. (no. 222 for the year 1955). The law, named “On Implementing Betterment Levies on Property Benefiting from Public Works,” explicitly mentions the type of works applicable for the levy to include: 1) building, widening, or modifying roads, 2) building bridges and flyovers, and 3) sewage network projects. In every public decree issued for applying the levy in the last 10 years regarding road changes—which are available on the Egyptian court of cassation’s website—there were no cases involving infrastructure or transit improvement. The main benefit was widening roads and building flyovers. Development Exactions are used without a legal framework and are mainly meant to fund road building and utilities to new developments (UN-Habitat, 2015). However, one of NUCA’s recent policies used Development Exactions to fund projects that included cycling lanes. In the policy, called the “3% project,” councils of new [suburban] cities were ordered to lease public lands, reserved as road buffer zones to developers, for commercial purposes. This provision was based on several conditions, including that developers build on 3% of the land area, and include cycling paths. The paths are meant for leisure and are not connected to each other to serve as a network in some of the cities. However, the city of October, for example, coordinated and required the paths to be connected. (Alahwal, 2021b).

The sale of development rights is also practiced without a legal framework and is used to sell more building area in developments. (UN-Habitat, 2015). This could be used as a policy for densification.

4.2 Fees and Charges

Roadspaces are usually funded in part by driver-based taxes and tolls, and in part by general taxes. This means that bicycle users, commuters, and pedestrians bear the cost of roads being used mainly by car users. However, in some cases, cycling infrastructure was funded by gas and driver-based taxes. (Waters, 2012). Transportation fees could be directed to discourage car use and encourage cycling and transit use, and if done in parallel with easing transit and cycling as a viable option, they can be successful in that goal. Congestion fees could be applied when driving in certain city areas or times, parking fees could also vary by location and be effective, and high occupancy tolls targeting vehicles with passengers below a minimum number can also be impactful. (Merk, 2012). In Egypt, these laws do not exist, and free on street parking is common.

4.3 Property Tax

Policies directed at supporting cycling commuting can direct property taxation to control sprawl by factoring density, size, and location of property into tax classes. Taxations that favour multi-family housing over single-family housing often lead to areas better served by transit and cycling and also internalize the environmental costs of low-density urbanization (Merk, 2012).

In Egypt, property tax classes are factored only to the estimated rental value of the property. Location, size, and density do not factor in the calculation. Unused empty land is not taxed at all. Therefore, controlling speculation to increase density is not possible through the current property tax law.

Moreover, property tax is elusive since around 90% of property is not registered in the official cadastre. Additionally, around 25% of the tax is allocated to the local government and 75% to the central government. This implies that the role of the local government in directing these funds towards infrastructure projects is much less than the central government.

5.0 Enforcement

Recognition plays an important part in the implementation of road rules and laws. Recognition between road users as well as traffic police, on the right of the street, and how bicycle users and car users are seen as right holders, can affect the extent to which enforcement targets bicycle users and car users. When police in a society recognize the danger imposed by bicycle users as low, it is more likely that the police are not strictly applying the law to bicycle users. (Waters, 2012).

5.1 Prohibiting Car Parking on Bike Lanes, Three Models

A recurring problem in several of the bike lanes built in Egypt has been cars parking on the lanes. The issue is so dangerous that it is described by users and officials alike as the main reason for the failure of the bicycle network implemented in the city of Shebin. (Alahwal, 2021b). The same issue occurs in the bicycle lanes in the cities of Fayou, Shorouk and Sheikh Zayed. The three paths have bicycle lanes with minimal separation from the street. In the case of Shebin, a city with a relatively high number of bicycle users and a network implemented in the city center (Alahwal, 2021c), the initial design was to have bicycle paths separated from the car lanes. However, the local traffic authority objected to taking car space for the bicycle paths. A middle ground proposed by the project initiators (the UNDP and the ministry of environment), was to build bicycle lanes separated by horizontal bollards only and ban car parking on the streets where bicycle lanes are built, except for emergency parking. The parking ban was not implemented at all by the traffic department, and in just a few days the bicycle lanes were filled with parked cars, including those of public entities. Some cars were parked for long periods and even weeks without moving. Users also mention that neither alternatives nor enforcement was done to face the parking cars problem (Alahwal 2021b). The city of Sohag is another interesting example of the enforcement of banning cars from parking on lanes. The city had implemented two bicycle lanes on the two sides of its Nile banks, with separation using both horizontal and vertical bollards, and a car parking ban. The lane on the western bank performs well, with little cars parking, and only for short periods. This street is described by the local cycling group (Darrago Sohag), as having little need for car parking. The lane on the eastern Nile bank, though, has been removed, according to the group, due to objections by picnic goers who wanted to park their cars on the street facing the Nile front with a picnic area (Alahwal, 2021f). A third model is bike lanes that are separated by level and distance from car lanes. This model is implemented in the cities of October and Zayed. These lanes are not obstructed by car parking at all. However, because they were built for leisure, they propose other obstacles to bicycle user needs.

5.2 Enforcement of Bicycle Traffic Laws

Here we describe laws targeting bicycle gear and behavior in the Egyptian traffic law: installing lights and a bell on the bicycle, and prohibition of riding next to each other or removing hands from the steering bar. These law violations are not addressed by the police. A poll was posted by the authors on an Egyptian Facebook cycling group: Pirates Cyclists (33k members), with three answers: penalties are implemented, penalties are not implemented, I always abide by these laws. The poll got 61 answers; none said that penalties are implemented.

6.0 Education

6.1 Road Users Education

As part of required training, information, and tests to road users, especially through the process of obtaining a driving licence, education is sometimes required by law. For car users, this includes recognizing dangers for bicycle users, through safety distances, and opening doors. For bicycle users, this means learning the relevant road rules. (Waters, 2012). The most obvious cycling education policy is probably cycle training, which includes learning how to cycle, but also learning how to ride in traffic/urban settings or learning how to fix or maintain bicycles. The impact of cycle training is under-researched, but it seems to be complex and affecting areas beyond cycling mobility.

Cycle training can target specific groups who have specific needs or encounter specific barriers, such as children (Ducheyne et al., 2014,; Mandic et al., 2018), LGBT+ women, migrant and/or refugee populations (van der Kloof, 2015; van der Kloof et al., 2014) and disabled people. (Clayton et al. 2017).

6.2 Professionals Education

This targets whether the relevant laws of planning, traffic, and environment are included in university curriculums, and explicitly addresses bicycle users (Waters, 2012).

7.0 Summary Table

Issue Variations The case in Egypt
Traffic Laws
Right to use street -Universal

-Restricted by location

-Restricted by age (not enforced)
Stop -Yield (rolling stop)

-Stop

-Not existing
Prohibited behaviour -Talking on the phone -Removing hands

-Holding cargo

-Holding another vehicle

(all not enforced)

Parking on bicycle paths -Prohibited

-Allowed in certain conditions and path types

-Prohibited (not enforced)
Safe distance -Specified distance in law Not existing
Liability -Strict liability Not existing
Intermodality -Allowed on transport

-Allowed with a ticket

-Not allowed

-Allowed with a ticket only on trains (no explicit regulation, but treated as parcel)
Riding side by side -Maximum two

-Maximum one

-Maximum one (not enforced)
Cycling gear -Mandatory lights and bell

-Mandatory brakes

-Mandatory helmet

-Mandatory lights and bell

-Mandatory hand brakes

(both not enforced)

Bicycle definition -Human-powered and two or more wheels (Vienna convention) -Human-powered and two or more wheels, built from steel sections and no bolts in the mainframe (not enforced)
Open streets -Legally defined path for community to organise and licence -Not existent
Planning Laws -Ensure safety

-Complete streets principles

-Not existing
Cycling paths -Target at locations (e.g., schools)

-General regulation to road types

-Path size and separation prescribed based on road type or characteristics

-Path size and separation described without connection to road type

-Mandatory for roads with more than 500 users per day (not enforced)

-Path size and separation described without connection to road type

Intersections and traffic lights -Banned car parking distance

-Set-back line

-Pre-green

-Turn right on red

-Dedicated traffic light

-Not existing
Speed -Speed limit assigned to zones according to characteristics

-Speed limit assigned to street types

-Not existing on local road types

-Traffic calming is advised without specification of measures and locations

Cycling masterplans -National level

-Targeted at specific land use

-International level

-Not existing
Financing Laws
Land value capture -Development exactions -betterment levies
-Sale of development rights
-Development exactions
Fees and charges -Congestion charges

-Parking fees

-High occupancy toll lanes

-Building permits

-Not existing
Property tax -Favoring density -Not factoring density

 

8.0 Conclusion

Bicycle use in Egypt often falls out of the sphere of social justice into leisure, but in many cases does and serves crucial needs for accessibility, health, and environmental protection. Laws in the spheres of traffic, planning, and finance, should aim to facilitate cycling for transportation and make it a safe and viable option. Some laws in this direction exist and are not enforced due to social or political obstacles, especially the 500 AADT and the parking on cycling paths regulations. On the other hand, many laws and regulations that exist in other legislations to support cycling do not exist in the Egyptian legislation. If introduced, some would have to face social and political obstacles similar to the existing ones (e.g.: all financing laws, and street design guidelines), while some laws that are targeted at individual contention could face less obstruction to implement (e.g.: strict liability laws). Although improving commuter cycling in Egypt would benefit from introducing legislation, much benefit would come as well from advocacy that aims to discuss the laws, challenge transportation discourses, and call for enforcement.


Ahmed Tarek Alahwal is a PHD candidate and researcher at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg. Ahmed’s past experience includes being a program coordinator and co-founder of Tabdeel for cycling urbanism, as well as Trickool for water technologies, in addition to the position of urban program coordinator at Megawra – Built Environment Collective, and urban researcher at Copenhagenize for cycling urbanism. Ahmed holds a master’s of urban management and development, specialized in urban land governance, from the Institute of Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS), Rotterdam. Ahmed’s research independently and with the mentioned institutions covers the fields of urban mobility, urban water management, land taxation, public space management.

Omar Aboutaleb is an Egyptian architect and urban researcher with a focus on art, urbanism, and sociology. Aboutaleb is currently an Urban Design M.Sc candidate at TU-Berlin University, Germany. Previously, he obtained his first master’s in Urban Management and Development with a specialization in infrastructure and green cities from the Institute of Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS), Erasmus University, the Netherlands. In parallel, he co-founded Wasla Project as an urban-advocacy group that champions the rights of cyclists to use and shape the Egyptian streets.

 

 

 


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