Thank You Amman Municipality
I have to admit it, I LOVE the 4th circle tunnel, I love the bridge and I love the tunnel under Abdoun that allows me to get from Shemisani (once I get out of my driveway) to the Abdoun Mall area in something like 10 minutes max! I know, we complained and complained about “why do we need to build that stupid bridge.” We said, “I will never use it” or “watch it collapse with the first rain” or “what a waste of money!” Yet, I now plan all of my routes around how I can make use that bridge!
So here it is…and you haven’t heard me say this very often, but Thank You Amman Municipality! Thank you for not listening to the many complainers like me and thank you for building that traffic complex. There might be some glitches and it might not be perfect, but it sure has made my driving life easier….and….I can’t wait until this is all connected to the airport road….so please hurry!
kag
So here it is…and you haven’t heard me say this very often, but Thank You Amman Municipality! Thank you for not listening to the many complainers like me and thank you for building that traffic complex. There might be some glitches and it might not be perfect, but it sure has made my driving life easier….and….I can’t wait until this is all connected to the airport road….so please hurry!
kag
posted by joladies at Friday, February 09, 2007
10 Comments:
nice but lets be fair. how many Jordanians will need to make the trip from Shmisani to fancy Abdoun mall? < 1% of Jordanians. the bridge is a waste and the tunnel is worthless now that the jam has been pushed downstream. and when you take into consideration Jordan's rundown public schools (Jordanians children's last hope for a better future) one must marvel at the colossal act of misplaced priority. but then again, in the absence of democracy, mediocrity reigns supreme.
nana: your comment is very unfair, not to mention the fact that it is a frail assumption to think that democracy yields only heavenly city planning and has never created anything mediocre. The worst public school in jordan is better than the worst public school in the U.S.
the abdoun bridge and the 4th circle tunnel are not built specifically for those making the trip between shmisani and abdoun, and it would take someone who lack the ability to see the whole board to make such an assumption.
the whole plan is to expand amman towards the airport road and as this is happening transportation is being taken into consideration. once the inner road is complete much of amman will be connected. this plan is not to benefit the wealthy or the less than 1% but rather everyone living in the expanding city. tunnels more complicated than the recent 4th circle are being built all over the city including the east end and the expanding region into places like imgablain.
and while i agree education is important, so is infrastructure.
I agree, the new solution isn't perfect, but even with its blemishes, it's 100 times more efficient than the old intersection. So thank you, GAM.
Come to think of it, the problem with the intersection may not be with the design, but rather with the drivers that enter the circle. ;)
Well said Dave ... so now we have the infrastructure, can we please teach people how to drive properly...time to overhaul our driver training centres ... and have a very close look at how trainers are trained! J
"democracy yields only heavenly city planning and has never created anything mediocre. "
This is a common logical fallacy in debates. You have just made up a weak argument so you can argue against it. I never claimed democracy results in heavenly city planning. But democracy would have resulted in priorities that reflect the needs of the majority of voters not the 1% of Jordanians.
and with democracy comes accountability, and a decision like building a costly luxury bridge would have been subject to an intense debate. i doubt most Jordanians (who live in East amman and Zarqa and Irbid, Maan, Salt) would have opted for a bridge that serves a certain class of Jordanians who love in Amman (lets face it, bridge was built for Hariri's new Abdali commercial center) while jordan's health care and educational infrastructures are systematically being eroded and deprived of financial resources.
"The worst public school in jordan is better than the worst public school in the U.S. "
Really? says who? You! amazing how Jordanians who belong to the 1% seem to always find arguments why democracy is not good and now we learn that rundown Jordanian schools are better than rundown American schools. (another proof of wise Jordanian government). you are so sad. you forget that most public Jordanian public schools are rundown.
I am so often caught off guard by my Jordanian family on an issue such as this bridge. What I, as a foreigner, consider priorities, are not always Jordanian priorities. Jordanians have their own sense of pride in country and their own standards of progress. Many see the bridge as an outward example of their coming of age in the modern world - and as such a great source of pride. ASH
"But democracy would have resulted in priorities that reflect the needs of the majority of voters not the 1% of Jordanians."
since when? democracy hasnt existed since the greek piled into townhalls. public policy is not formulated by a head count. we dont ask for a show of hands. in a republic the people dont decide, they choose the people who decide for them. and even then those people are more concerned with power than anything else.
the greatest republics in the world have some of the greatest failing educational institutions in the world. those same republics hardly ever offer a reflection of better priorities. in fact most of their public policy caters to people like them: in power and/or wealthy. big business.
i am not arguing that democracy is bad, but you offering it as an alternative to all our problems is not a solution.
lastly it would be better if you built an arguement that didnt center around "you are part of the 1%...therefore you are evil". it doesnt really play well nor does it make sense that the people with the greatest incomes in the country, who end up paying for most of the country, should not have a say in the ongoings OF the country.
and if you're against this single bridge then you should also protest every single bridge and tunnel that has been built all over amman, including outside the borders of west amman.
oh and if you dont think that the worst public school in jordan is better than the worst public school in america...then i doubt you've ever stepped foot in one of those schools. when one's survival rate descreases the moment they step through the metal detector at the door, well suffice to say even the worst schools in jordan have it better off.
all that being said, this tunnel vision type of thinking tends to lead to the belief the GAM or even the government do not multi task public policy and only do one thing at a time. like putting everything on hold and focusing only on building one bridge.
Nas, you are not the only one who had Political Science 101 in college so no need to regurgitate the conclusion section from chapter 1 on the history of democracy. But had you passed your Logic 101 class, you would have known all about the Straw Man's fallacy which seems to be your forte. you attribute arguments that you can easily win to another person then you proceed to argue against them. fact is, you argue about points not related to my post all the time. cheesy if you ask me.
Nana, had you read the article more closely you would have seen that I wrote that the new 4th circle complex takes me to the Abdoun mall area, not to the Abdoun mall. A small detail, I agree, but should you know that area, you would also know that there are schools "over there" too and that is the way I go to pick up my grandson.
I am very sorry I happen to live in Shemisani, but since I have been there for 40 years, I guess you are right, I am probably the only 1% one who is still stuck in the middle of that horribly crowded place. I wish that I lived somewhere else, but for now I am stuck there and therefore I love the 4th circle complex because it makes my driving life, and I am only referring to me, a heck of a lot easier!
kag
nana: well thanks for the refresher course in straw man fallacies.
but if your only argument here centers around the modes of reasoning behind my argument...
then wake me up when you have an actual argument for me :-)
Post a Comment
<< Home