Different Type of Wheels in the Egyptian Streets
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as of 2015, “15% of developing countries” or about 12-13.5 million Egyptians have a disability (El Refaei, 7). In defining the term Disability, we find the term in the Oxford dictionary stated as “a physical or mental condition that limits a person's movements, senses, or activities”. For the Egyptian scholars and policymakers however, disability is defined as “any individual who differs from normal individuals in physical, mental or social aspects to the extent that requires special rehabilitation action to make him/her reach maximum abilities and potentials” (Hagrass, 151). Bridging the gap of what Oxford has defined versus what the policymakers and scholars in Egypt deemed as normal is our aim in this article. In a broader sense, the Egyptian society defines the disabled person as “a person who needs a rehabilitation service to meet the basic needs in society because of their impairment which results in a physical, social, economical or a psychological disability” (Country Profile on Disability, 9).
Whether we abide by what the scholars inside and outside of Egypt phrase as a definition for the disability or not, we know that most of the disabilities come with a particular hardship in mobility. Whether it is “Cerebral Palsy, Spina Bifida, Muscular Dystrophy, heart defects or amputation” we know that mobility becomes affected. Motion helpers then come in handy, such as the Canes, Walkers and most commonly the wheelchairs (Disabled-world). Wheelchairs are the go-to solution for the strong disabilities that involve partial or complete movement impairment, for example cerebral palsy and leg amputations. These wheelchairs are defined as the tool "used by people for whom walking is difficult or impossible due to illness, injury, or disability.”
Whether people are born naturally disabled or become disabled due to accidents that occur to them, they find a huge difficulty in moving and mobilizing even after using the practical wheelchairs in Egypt. Many wheelchair users think that the facilities in Egypt are not suitable for them, where they think that “Egypt is impossible for a wheelchair user,” as portrayed by Ehab Heikal, an Egyptian who used a wheelchair for a while in his life.
There are many factors that make Egypt a place that cannot host wheelchair users, such as high, uneven sidewalks, lack of ramps for wheelchairs, lack of pedestrian passage rights, as well as the technical lack of elevators and handicapped parking. “As a Metropolitan city, Cairo is a difficult city for walking; its many congested public spaces, are faced with many challenges concerning control between pedestrians and vehicle traffic” (Maarouf & Al Alfy, 144). Stressing on further, the authors mentioned how the “Pedestrians in Cairo have poor walking environments even where sidewalks exist.” and how the “Rights-of-way account for slightly more than a tenth of the land area, and most of space is devoted to roadways”. That was not all. They elaborated that “most of the public pedestrian network is along arterial roadways, because there are no parking lots in Cairo's streets, thus more of the right of way is devoted to parking and moving vehicles rather than to pedestrians”. The authors concluded that the uneven, unwalkable city sidewalks attributed to its congested spaces, as well as the lack of pedestrian passage rights in their concluding remark that showcased that “the most significant problems can be summarized in: (1) The unevenness of sidewalks; and (2) The inadequate provision of pedestrian crossings.” (Maarouf & Al Alfy, 150).
If this affects the lifestyle and walkability of a healthy individual, from the viewpoint of Maarouf and Al Alfy, one can only imagine what would be the case of those disabled who use clutches, canes or even the bulky wheelchairs. The problem doesn’t stop there. Not only is the space little, the sidewalks uneven and passage rights for pedestrians forgotten, but also whatever space there is for pedestrians, is jammed. “Another problem is the occupation of cafes chairs and tables to the space of walking along the sidewalks that represents obstacles to pedestrians” (Osman, 9). As written by Osman, the problem doesn’t only become the narrowing of the walking space available for the normal and disabled pedestrians (or its unevenness as advocated by Maarouf and Al Alfy), it also turns out that those pedestrians will be sharing that walking space with the chairs and tables of cafes and items and containers of various food kiosks available all over Egypt. Osman concluded with the fact that there is “a major problem in the streets which is the interference between pedestrians and vehicles in the street space because of the absence of sidewalks or because of the unsuitability of them to use for walking along,” (Osman, 10).
In addition, to the lack of pedestrian passage rights as promoted by Osman and the pedestrian’s share of the roads with cars, ramps are not readily available everywhere as they aren’t designed to be built with the sidewalks, not even at the biggest roads. Which prompted Osman to call for “Proper ramps be built among the curb lines of the sidewalk should be used with a suitable design for people with wheelchairs, to help for an transition between the street and the sidewalk” (Osman, 10).
If that was not enough, for the disabled person, let’s tackle yet another aspect of the day to day walk down Egypt’s roads and pavements; parking. “Because there are no parking lots in Cairo's streets, more of the right of way is devoted to parking and moving vehicle” wrote Maarouf and Al Alfy. Moreover, they added to their conclusions two main points regarding the parking which advocated that “parking problems should be appeased by an underground garage” as well as “illegal car parking should be banned to stop the current problems, but there should be underground parking available paid per hour to increase the pedestrian area” (Maarouf and Al Alfy, 155).
In conclusion, these problems mentioned above are only some of the problems that face some of the disabled Egyptians in some aspects of their daily life as they stroll down the streets of Egypt. We didn’t tackle yet the rest of the disabilities that Egyptians have that aren’t concerned with mobility, like hearing or vision or speech impairment (partially or fully) as well as different combinations of these impairments. We only tackled on a little aspect, which is the mobility of the wheelchair disabled Egyptian and how they are affected by the very uneven, unequal and unready environment around them. We can only imagine what sort of struggle the rest go through in this environment and we can only advocate for equal voicing of their rights.
Written by Nourhan El Lithy
References:
https://www.disabled-world.com/disability/types/mobility/
https://www.disabled-world.com/assistivedevices/mobility/wheelchairs/
4) Country Profile on Disability ARAB REPUBLIC OF EGYPT
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DISABILITY/Resources/Regions/MENA/JICA_Egypt.pdf
5) An Approach towards Solving Pedestrian Problems in Modern Cairo Nihal Mohamed Maarouf and Ayman Hisham El-Alfy
http://www.aensiweb.com/old/jasr/jasr/2012/144-156.pdf
6) A Tale of a Sidewalk; the Conflict of Its Presence and Usage in the Streets of Cairo By Dalia Abdel Moneim Osman
http://www.ecsdev.org/ojs/index.php/ejsd/article/view/312/309
Whether we abide by what the scholars inside and outside of Egypt phrase as a definition for the disability or not, we know that most of the disabilities come with a particular hardship in mobility. Whether it is “Cerebral Palsy, Spina Bifida, Muscular Dystrophy, heart defects or amputation” we know that mobility becomes affected. Motion helpers then come in handy, such as the Canes, Walkers and most commonly the wheelchairs (Disabled-world). Wheelchairs are the go-to solution for the strong disabilities that involve partial or complete movement impairment, for example cerebral palsy and leg amputations. These wheelchairs are defined as the tool "used by people for whom walking is difficult or impossible due to illness, injury, or disability.”
Whether people are born naturally disabled or become disabled due to accidents that occur to them, they find a huge difficulty in moving and mobilizing even after using the practical wheelchairs in Egypt. Many wheelchair users think that the facilities in Egypt are not suitable for them, where they think that “Egypt is impossible for a wheelchair user,” as portrayed by Ehab Heikal, an Egyptian who used a wheelchair for a while in his life.
There are many factors that make Egypt a place that cannot host wheelchair users, such as high, uneven sidewalks, lack of ramps for wheelchairs, lack of pedestrian passage rights, as well as the technical lack of elevators and handicapped parking. “As a Metropolitan city, Cairo is a difficult city for walking; its many congested public spaces, are faced with many challenges concerning control between pedestrians and vehicle traffic” (Maarouf & Al Alfy, 144). Stressing on further, the authors mentioned how the “Pedestrians in Cairo have poor walking environments even where sidewalks exist.” and how the “Rights-of-way account for slightly more than a tenth of the land area, and most of space is devoted to roadways”. That was not all. They elaborated that “most of the public pedestrian network is along arterial roadways, because there are no parking lots in Cairo's streets, thus more of the right of way is devoted to parking and moving vehicles rather than to pedestrians”. The authors concluded that the uneven, unwalkable city sidewalks attributed to its congested spaces, as well as the lack of pedestrian passage rights in their concluding remark that showcased that “the most significant problems can be summarized in: (1) The unevenness of sidewalks; and (2) The inadequate provision of pedestrian crossings.” (Maarouf & Al Alfy, 150).
If this affects the lifestyle and walkability of a healthy individual, from the viewpoint of Maarouf and Al Alfy, one can only imagine what would be the case of those disabled who use clutches, canes or even the bulky wheelchairs. The problem doesn’t stop there. Not only is the space little, the sidewalks uneven and passage rights for pedestrians forgotten, but also whatever space there is for pedestrians, is jammed. “Another problem is the occupation of cafes chairs and tables to the space of walking along the sidewalks that represents obstacles to pedestrians” (Osman, 9). As written by Osman, the problem doesn’t only become the narrowing of the walking space available for the normal and disabled pedestrians (or its unevenness as advocated by Maarouf and Al Alfy), it also turns out that those pedestrians will be sharing that walking space with the chairs and tables of cafes and items and containers of various food kiosks available all over Egypt. Osman concluded with the fact that there is “a major problem in the streets which is the interference between pedestrians and vehicles in the street space because of the absence of sidewalks or because of the unsuitability of them to use for walking along,” (Osman, 10).
In addition, to the lack of pedestrian passage rights as promoted by Osman and the pedestrian’s share of the roads with cars, ramps are not readily available everywhere as they aren’t designed to be built with the sidewalks, not even at the biggest roads. Which prompted Osman to call for “Proper ramps be built among the curb lines of the sidewalk should be used with a suitable design for people with wheelchairs, to help for an transition between the street and the sidewalk” (Osman, 10).
If that was not enough, for the disabled person, let’s tackle yet another aspect of the day to day walk down Egypt’s roads and pavements; parking. “Because there are no parking lots in Cairo's streets, more of the right of way is devoted to parking and moving vehicle” wrote Maarouf and Al Alfy. Moreover, they added to their conclusions two main points regarding the parking which advocated that “parking problems should be appeased by an underground garage” as well as “illegal car parking should be banned to stop the current problems, but there should be underground parking available paid per hour to increase the pedestrian area” (Maarouf and Al Alfy, 155).
In conclusion, these problems mentioned above are only some of the problems that face some of the disabled Egyptians in some aspects of their daily life as they stroll down the streets of Egypt. We didn’t tackle yet the rest of the disabilities that Egyptians have that aren’t concerned with mobility, like hearing or vision or speech impairment (partially or fully) as well as different combinations of these impairments. We only tackled on a little aspect, which is the mobility of the wheelchair disabled Egyptian and how they are affected by the very uneven, unequal and unready environment around them. We can only imagine what sort of struggle the rest go through in this environment and we can only advocate for equal voicing of their rights.
Written by Nourhan El Lithy
References:
- Challenges of Social Service Delivery to Persons with Disabilities in Egypt: A Stakeholders’ Analysis By Amira Ayman El Refaei
- Definitions of Disability and Disability Policy in Egypt By Heba Hagrass
- Disabled World:
https://www.disabled-world.com/disability/types/mobility/
https://www.disabled-world.com/assistivedevices/mobility/wheelchairs/
4) Country Profile on Disability ARAB REPUBLIC OF EGYPT
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DISABILITY/Resources/Regions/MENA/JICA_Egypt.pdf
5) An Approach towards Solving Pedestrian Problems in Modern Cairo Nihal Mohamed Maarouf and Ayman Hisham El-Alfy
http://www.aensiweb.com/old/jasr/jasr/2012/144-156.pdf
6) A Tale of a Sidewalk; the Conflict of Its Presence and Usage in the Streets of Cairo By Dalia Abdel Moneim Osman
http://www.ecsdev.org/ojs/index.php/ejsd/article/view/312/309