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Civil Affairs team works to improve Baghdad city streets, traffic controls

ARCENT Release

Release Date: 8/12/2003

Story and photos by Spc. Chad D. Wilkerson 372nd MPAD

BAGHDAD, IRAQ (Aug. 11, 2003) - The 354th Civil Affairs Brigade, and Army Reserve unit from Riverdale, Md., is working to make Baghdad city streets a safer place to travel.

Lt. Col. Joe Wunderlich, transportation officer for the public facilities team from the 354th, has been working with Mujahid Shariff, director general for projects for the city of Baghdad, in order to identify and repair major problem areas in the streets of Baghdad, a city of five million people.

"These projects that we are taking on have been identified by the mayor of Baghdad as very important parts of the overall transportation infrastructure," said Wunderlich. "We are repairing or replacing hundreds of guardrails, traffic lights, and curb stands."

Although Wunderlich and his team have overseen completion of work on some damage caused by the conflict here, he said that many of the repairs they have done and will do are on pre-existing problems.

"Along the road to Baquba, there was a one- or two-meter falloff that we fixed for the safety of both the Iraqi people and the coalition forces that use the highways," Wunderlich said. "There are decades-old, traffic light systems, and drivers' behaviors have become very poor."

Speaking of the overall goals, Wunderlich said, goal one is to repair damage to bring the roads back to pre-war or better conditions, whether caused by coalition forces or not, so that people can drive on the streets as safely as possible.

And goal two is to improve "traffic-ability" throughout the city by moving vendors to appropriate locations -- out of the flow of traffic -- and by getting traffic control points up and running, to get people to begin to obey traffic laws."

"There is a comprehensive traffic study being done right now," Wunderlich said. "Although years of neglect have affected it, in the years to come, I see Baghdad becoming a thriving, metropolitan, world-class city."