Development of Downtown Traffic System of Taif City

Taif city is the capital of Arabian tourism. A sever traffic congestion is observed in the downtown. This study includes the problem of congestion traffic in downtown traffic system of Taif city and determines the cause of congestion problems in the ways, round trip and engineering calculations such as peak hour factors, peak hour volume, engineering design and life cost cycle according to the international and national specifications. A traffic survey was measured and environmental impact assessment conducted to apply realistic environmental constraints. The alternatives proposed within the existing road networks were examined to obtain the optimized alternative solution, in order to find a sustainable traffic flow leading to sustainable design. Two proposed alternatives solutions were studied, schematic proposal solution and structural design proposal solution. This paper found out the fact on the reduction of congestion problems through improving existing main road (Taif - airport road) in the center of Taif city by the necessity of opening this existing road, because it achieves a safe traffic flow and active involvement in reducing the problems of traffic delay. In this paper, the results of the study were presented on the selected case study, which includes the closed main road and the left turning movements (U-Turn) in the downtown area of Taif. In relation to the importance of this issue, a solution has been implemented throughout the study. The executed proposal still needs more improvements to avoid heavy traffic congestion, especially during peak hours.