During his decade of rule, Cairo lost over half of its 120 kilometers of trams and tracks but his dream was never realized as reality was far more complex than his stubborn naive vision. In typical dictatorial fashion and without making decisions based on studies, public interest or the opinions of planners and experts, Sadat favored the removal of Cairo’s extensive tram network, which he saw as obstacles to the imported Ford and Chevrolet cars. In his memoirs he wrote that he dreamt for every Egyptian to own a car, a house and a television set.
Anwar Sadat was an Americanizer, which hasn’t turned out to be a good thing for the average urban Egyptian. The system was neglected from the early 1970s then was faced with top-down decisions made by the state regarding the role of the private (imported) car in the future of Egyptian cities.
Trams were first installed in Alexandria then Cairo and other cities in the delta at the end of the 19th century. It has been ten years since Al-Ahram Weekly published a piece by Amira El-Noshokaty about Cairo’s (and Egypt’s) dying trams (May 2002).
