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Beirut mayor vows to address parking, traffic, lack of green spaces

25 February 2011

BEIRUT: The mayor of Beirut is promising to address the capital’s nagging problems with traffic, parking and a lack of green spaces, while ending the irritating phenomenon of recurring infrastructure works by 2013.

“To solve [the problem of traffic], we need to establish modern public transportation in Beirut and outside Beirut, and this requires cooperation between Beirut Municipality and the Transport Ministry,” Bilal Hamad told a news conference Thursday at the municipality headquarters.

“We also need to open parking spaces; there will be a plan to create parking structures in the various neighborhoods of Beirut,” he said, adding that the planned structures could accommodate up to 2,000 cars.

He said that the project, which would start this year, would take time because it required the expropriation of private property.

Greater Beirut experiences terrible traffic on a daily basis, with congestion worsening during holiday periods and in summer.

The mayor promised to put forward a plan this year in cooperation with the Transport Ministry to improve public transportation by building a new bus terminal in Cola, a hub for transport to south Lebanon and the Bekaa.

He announced that a specifications book, based on which a company would be selected to run and renovate the Charles Helou transport terminal, had been finalized.

“We will be preparing for the tender bidding within the coming weeks … this project will provide parking space for around 600 cars, which will contribute to easing traffic in [the nearby nightlife center of] Gemmayzeh,” he said, adding that the terminal had not been renovated since the 1970s.

“With these two terminals, all buses coming from the north and south will park in these facilities, and will not enter Beirut [proper],” he said.

Hamad said works will begin this year on a road between the area near ABC Mall in Ashrafieh and the Charles Helou terminal, which would reduce traffic. Tunnels would increasingly be used in central intersections in the capital, and the ongoing works in the Barbir tunnel should finally be wrapped up by the end of May.

Hamad, who assumed office in June of last year, complained about the bureaucratic routine which he said delayed the implementation of projects.

“Due to administrative routine, any project that the Municipal Council decides to implement needs between six months and one year to kick off,” he said, promising to accelerate work by computerizing the municipality’s nine departments.

Discussing the municipality’s achievements, Hamad said construction works have finished for a public school in Zoqaq al-Blat, with an underground public parking area. Another contract is scheduled to be awarded to a company to build a public school on Bliss Street.

As for other large-scale projects, Hamad said the Beirut Municipality Stadium would be turned into a “civic center” containing playing fields, a public library, a green public space and other facilities.

An alternative stadium near the Hippodrome in Qasqas would be constructed, added Hamad, who said he hoped plans will be completed by the end of this year. As for the Hippodrome, Hamad said the municipality was mulling a project by which the facility would offer other services as well.

On the issue of green spaces in the capital, the mayor vowed to cooperate with the private sector to author a plan to rehabilitate Beirut’s 11 major public parks, which cover a space of an area of at least 2,000 square meters each.

Hamad promised all infrastructure works would be completed by 2013, “once and for all,” in a city notorious for seeing the same patch of street dug up time and time again.

He noted that as the mayor of Beirut he did not wield executive authority, which is in the hands of the city’s governor. “The municipal council issues the decision … but has the authority to oversee the execution of these decisions by the governor,” Hamad said. But he said that if every official acted in line with his or her prerogatives, “matters in the municipality will move smoothly.”

As for illegal construction on seafront properties, another long-standing sore point for activists and environmentalists, Hamad said the Beirut police could remove violations within 24 hours if political cover of violators was lifted.

“One of the violators was so rude as to personally tell me that ‘neither you nor the state can get me out of here’ … he enjoys political cover that we think should be lifted,” Hamad said.

© Copyright The Daily Star 2011.