Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) spent JOD 15 millions during the last four years on renovation and construction of sidewalks in Amman city.
According to the Director of Construction Department, Engineer Mohammed Rahahleh, GAM issued new and modern pavement instructions clarifying the mode of constructing sidewalks according to international standards; it also reconstructed many sidewalks of main streets in Amman and its regions.
In 2006, GAM launched sidewalks renovation project to renew the pedestrians’ sidewalks by removing unfitting trees and replanting them in sidewalks with width over 2m. Sidewalks less than 2 meters wide are paved without planting any kind of trees to provide more and safer space for pedestrians.
GAM also specified certain criteria for the trees planted on the sidewalks, for instance they shall be of a kind that grow quickly, annually falling leaves, roots relatively deep, and with high branches.
Since 2006 until 2009, GAM had removed 55,000 trees, the majority of which were olive trees, and the rest are the kinds that do not fit to the pedestrians’ movement, such as the Washingtonia trees. Last year GAM completed a tender of removing 10,000 trees with renovation works for sidewalks to which the trees were removed.
A study on the current situation revealed that olive trees cause dislocating the slabs of the sidewalks because of their huge roots, further, the branches of the olive trees occupy the whole space area of the sidewalk, which forces the pedestrians to walk away and go down to the street.
GAM is keen to make the Capital a pedestrian friendly city by providing safe spaces for the passers by and encouraging the citizens to practice walking.
Amman Institute for Urban Development, which GAM established in July 2008, organized “20 minutes in Amman” to experience walking from “Paris Circle” in Al Weibdeh to downtown, then from the bottom terrace of the Castle (Al Qal’aa) to Jabal Al Hussein to end the route at Al Weibdeh.
