This is the old United Nations University website. Although the road network represents nearly 25 per cent of the total GCR area, its practical capacity is inadequate owing to many problems. Lack of maintenance, poor driving habits, low vehicle occupancy, bottlenecks, and lack of parking lots and garages are among the major problems that decrease the efficiency of the network.
In more than , vehicles were on the road. Owing to the sharp increase in car ownership in the GCR in the past decade, this figure has now doubled to reach more than 1 million vehicles. Amongst the most important bottlenecks are the six bridges over the Nile that link Cairo and Giza sections and are overloaded during the rush hour. Mass transportation is owned and operated by the public sector and is, by any standards, overloaded. In response to this problem, privately owned passenger vans have begun to function all over the GCR.
This amount is sufficient by international standards to supply the population. However, owing to the lack of maintenance of pipelines, equipment, and fittings, more than 25 per cent of this capacity is lost or wasted.
The water network is old and pipe diameters are small, adding more problems to the distribution of water to many areas of the city. The situation with respect to the sewer network is even worse, even in districts connected to the system. Because of the sharp increase in population densities, the discharge in many districts of the GCR far exceeds the capacity of the sewerage system.
This causes frequent overflows and represents a dangerous source of pollution. In , 14 per cent of the buildings in the Cairo and Giza sections were not connected to any infrastructure system. Of the remaining 86 per cent, 9 per cent are still not connected to the water system, 8 per cent have no electricity, and 38 per cent are unconnected to sewage disposal networks.
