The El Azhar area of Cairo - also called the Fatimid area - dating back to the 10th Century,  is the Islamic Cultural Centre of the City, which includes architectural treasures of old Mosques and Palaces. The area has a glorious history and is characterised by many religious and cultural monument and features. Egyptian Government, has stipulated that great attention should be paid to the preservation of the special district of El Azhar as these features are considered unique architectural landmarks of Egypt. UNESCO has included this area on the list of World Heritage Sites. The area has suffered from many harmful episodes in its history and more recently, it has been affected by the modern lifestyle of Cairo. It is becoming more and more congested, with all forms of traffic, noise and fumes, which are not only harmful for the population but also cause damage to the unique Islamic structures and decorations. The Egyptian Government, through the Higher Council for Antiquities (part of the Ministry of Culture), the Ministry of Transport and the Cairo Governorate has prepared a plan for the development and a revival strategy, aimed at improving the district and protecting its historical heritage features. This plan is underway, with the starting of restoration of several of the most important monuments. Therefore, as part of this strategy, it was decided to divert traffic away from there and achieve a principally pedestrianised area , for tourists and pedestrians and to improve the environmental conditions in this uniquely important area. However, to divert the traffic to other streets surrounding El Azhar would have made these already congested streets even worse. Also, to construct an elevated roadway over the area would have made matters worse, detracted and from the architecture and ambience, thereby defeating the objective.

The planning of the construction of these tunnels started with the proposals for developing El Azhar area. The obvious solution was to construct two road tunnels, from Salah Salem Street on the east side to Opera Square on the west side and this has been accomplished. These are the first bored twin road tunnels in Egypt, each approximately 2.65 Km long. They were constructed at a cost of nearly 900 million Egyptian pounds. Each tunnel has an internal diameter of 8.35 metres, allowing two lanes of traffic in each direction. The tunnels allow the passage of cars, buses and light vehicles up to 4 metres high but trucks and larger vehicles are not permitted to use them.