[3] In the third master plan, approved in 1984 under the government of Hosni Mubarak and in collaboration with France, it appeared as a 73 km (45 mi) long beltway.
[4][5] Ring Road had the main purpose of stopping the urbanization of arable lands by creating a barrier around the Greater Cairo region.
[6] Ring Road's original route in 1984 took it very near the Giza pyramids, an area which has been on the UNESCO's World Heritage List since 1979.
In 1994, The Independent alerted the world[8] that the construction was probably destroying ancient burial sites since no proper controls were made.
[9] Also, it would pass by the South of the Giza plateau, isolating it from the open desert by surrounding it with roads on its four sides and bringing enormous urbanistical pressure.
[15] In 2010, a report commissioned by the World Bank and the government of Egypt found that the city was still severely congestioned, and identified many problematic spots, many of them on the Ring Road.