A coalition of human rights groups demanded a halt to Egypt’s 363-million-euro project dismantling Alexandria’s historic tramway, citing severe heritage destruction and commuter displacement.
The escalating dispute underscores a systemic friction between the government’s top-down urban overhauls and civil society groups fighting to safeguard local heritage, worker economic rights, and environmental protections. The confrontation coincides with an active suit before the Alexandria Administrative Court seeking to freeze the infrastructure plan.
In a joint statement on Saturday, the seven organizations warned that the partial suspension of the Raml line has heavily burdened low-income commuters, students, and the elderly. The tramway reliably served roughly 80,000 daily passengers before operations were phased out in early 2026.
Extended travel times and a mandatory reliance on alternative transit have also left women and girls exposed to increased harassment on replacement buses. Signatories, including the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, the Egyptian Front for Human Rights, and the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights, noted that alternative options have doubled commuting costs.
The organizations, also including the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), EgyptWide for Human Rights, the Center for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance, and the Law and Democracy Support Foundation, added that the disruption has triggered severe traffic congestion across major corridors. Critics condemned the demolition of historic stations at Nasr (Victoria), Isis (Bolkly), and Bakus stations, as well as the removal of the historic Bulkeley clock, calling it a direct blow to the city’s urban identity.
Environmental advocates also raised alarms over the clear-cutting of trees along the transit route. They argued that stripping urban canopy from a coastal city highly vulnerable to climate shocks directly violates constitutional and environmental obligations to protect urban green space.
Beyond commuter impacts, transit workers face deep employment uncertainty, while drivers within the makeshift alternative network report extensive delays in state payouts. The civic opposition underpins a lawsuit demanding a stay of execution against a 2021 prime ministerial decree that declared the project a public utility.
Conversely, the Ministry of Transport stated that the modernization project will transform the historic line into a highly efficient transit network by completely rehabilitating the route, supplying new carriages, and updating signaling systems. Officials said the upgrade will reduce cross-city travel times to 30 minutes, shorten headway to three minutes, and expand daily capacity to 140,000 riders by 2027.
The government began gradually suspending the operation of the tram in February in preparation for the development work, which is scheduled to continue until 2027.
The 13.2-kilometer project includes 238 million euros in foreign loans from the French Development Agency and the European Investment Bank. South Korea’s Hyundai Rotem is also undertaking a contract exceeding 100 million euros to manufacture and supply 30 new 65-meter trainsets to service the route.
