Jordan Guide
Amman
Getting Around
Due to its geography and the unplanned nature of its expansion, Amman doesn't have an integrated transportsystem: buses and serveeces compete on set routes around the city (you'll never have to wait long beside a main road to flag one or other of them down), but none runs to a timetable. Few people pay heed to the roadside bus-stop pillars that appeared in some districts recently: most buses and all serveeces will stop anywhere. The fares quoted here are approximate.
Expect major changes over the next few years. A light railway is under construction between Amman and Zarqa, which may be extended to encompass a city-centre network. The mayor's office is also grappling with bringing order to the current, chaotic system of buses and serveeces: this may include transport maps, marked stops, published fares, and so on. Time will tell. In the meantime, make use of the Amman City Tour buses: 10JD for their 24-hour pass is pretty good value.
Heavy traffic
Traffic in Amman – especially West Amman – can be horrendous. There's an estimated one car for every seven residents; with the population approaching two million, that makes for one almighty traffic jam. Add to that an influx during the summer of tens of thousands of visitors from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, almost all of whom drive their own cars, and the problem reaches crisis levels. All this isn't helped by the local driving style: lane discipline is nonexistent, cars are frequently parked (or double-parked) to block the flow of traffic, roundabouts are a free-for-all, poor traffic-light phasing often leads to gridlock, and so on. Many pinchpoints around the city experience all-day congestion (streets in the complex Downtown one-way system, and in and around Shmeisani, are often nose-to-tail), and you should allow up to an hour to cross the city during the day. Thursday afternoons – the start of the weekend getaway – are notoriously bad. Respite comes overnight, and on Fridays.
Walking in Amman
Walking in Amman is a mixed bag. It's absolutely the only way to get around Downtown, but once you venture further out, distances between sights lengthen and the uptown hills feel like mountain peaks.
You can walk from one end of Downtown to the other in about twenty or thirty minutes, staying on the flat the whole way. Jebel al-Lweibdeh and the lower reaches of Jebel Amman (below 3rd Circle) are residential and can be explored on foot, but elsewhere, if you try to walk, you'll generally find yourself slogging along streams of traffic in neighbourhoods designed for driving.
However, one of the most delightful discoveries of old Amman – largely ignored by visitors and locals alike – are the flights of steps which trace direct paths up and down the steep Downtown hills, dating from the days in the 1930s and 1940s when hillside residences were otherwise inaccessible. Countless flights – many weed-ridden and crumbling – crisscross the area below 1st Circle on Jebel Amman, the nose of Jebel al-Lweibdeh, the flanks of Jebel al-Qal'a and the hills above the Roman Theatre, passing now and then through private backyards, beneath washing lines or past deserted, once-grand villas. If you're decently dressed and sensitive to the fact that you're tramping through people's gardens – as well as to the possibility that the steps you happen to have chosen might not go anywhere – you're basically free to explore.