Getting to Campus: Sustainable Public Transportation and Relocating the American University in Cairo | Ifi Working Paper

Working Paper | February 2015
Getting to Campus: Sustainable Public Transportation and Relocating the American University in Cairo by Richard Tutwiler, Hagar Eldidi, Yumna Kassim, and Andrew Petrovich
​Cairo is one of the most congested cities in the world, and public transportation is one of its greatest challenges. Government strategies to alleviate congestion have stressed horizontal expansion into the surrounding desert areas and the construction of more and ever larger motorways. This paper uses the experience of the American University in Cairo, which physically relocated in 2008 from its historic downtown campus to an entirely new campus in New Cairo, a planned city on the outskirts of Greater Cairo (GC), to assess policies and strategies for sustainable public transport within GC. By comparing how AUC students, faculty, and staff get to campus, the study concludes that sustainable urban transport systems must put priority on enhancing the mobility of people rather than vehicles. Furthermore, in light of current proposals by the University and the Ministry of Transport for bus and rail systems linking New Cairo to the rest of the metropolitan area, the paper identifies specific social, economic, and cultural differences among stakeholders in sustainable public transport that will strongly influence the outcomes of policy interventions