Talal Al-Qashqari Al-Madinah newspaper Jeddah is a city which seems overcrowded 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 30 days a month and 12 months a year. The worst congested two hours are those when children are driven to schools in the morning and when they are transported back in the afternoon. I can safely describe these two hours to be not only congested but chaotic as well. The root cause of the traffic chaos is not the absence of traffic policemen who even if present will only be sightseers, but the Jeddah municipality. While planning the city during the past 40 years, the municipality did not assign proper locations for schools. They handed away pieces of land as grants to their favored clients instead of designating them for schools. The same thing happened to the lands which should have been allotted to the construction of cemeteries, mosques and public parks. The end result was that the government and private schools were allocated lands in random areas along streets which were not properly prepared to serve public service facilities such as schools. With time and development, these facilities have become difficult to access. The main and side roads leading to them have become overcrowded. This is the root cause of the problem. This is in addition to the lack of public transport which is the responsibility of the municipality. The projects to remove roundabouts and construct new bridges with the aim of reducing bottlenecks have been delayed. The municipality got busy in executing decorative schemes with no great value and at high costs. I contend that the municipality is the reason behind the two worst hours in Jeddah and behind the traffic jams in general.
