Carine Assaf. Social Innovation: Utopia of (Re)shaping the Culture of Mobility in Beirut

Carine Assaf

Thesis submitted to obtain Master of Science of Urbanism and Strategic Planning Faculty of Engineering, Department of Architecture Promotor: Prof. Dr. Pieter Van den Broeck (KU Leuven) Co-promotor: Dr. Christine Mady (Notre Dame University, Louaize, Lebanon Reader: Layan Mneymne

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Academic Year 2016-2018

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“Before I leave, remember that your job as an architect or a planner is not limited within the limits of a building, you have to help in building better societies, for better generations” my father told me once, and “before I go as well, remember that Beirut will be a reflection of you, I believe in this” said Nicolas Gabriel..

For both of you, Beirut will not die because of those who always believed that change will occur somehow, but one has to start from somewhere,

© Copyright KU Leuven Without written permission of the thesis supervisor and the authors it is forbidden to reproduce or adapt in any form or by any means any part of this publication. Requests for obtaining the right to reproduce or utilize parts of this publication should be addressed to Faculteit Ingenieurswetenschappen, Kasteelpark Arenberg 1 bus 2200, B-3001 Heverlee, +32-16-321350. A written permission of the thesis supervisor is also required to use the methods, products, schematics and programs described in this work for industrial or commercial use, and for submitting this publication in scientific contests. ii

Prologue

This research examines how individuals are coping with the failing mass transit mobility networks within a context of instability marked by securitization and differentiation. The research studies, the context of Beirut, Lebanon after the end of fourteen years of war (1975-1989), and the start of reconstruction period.

After reconnecting the war-time divided city; urban mobility was vital to reinstating a return to everyday urban life; however, it had to cope with the country’s perpetual instabilities. Building on information from the researchers’ observations, interviews with various stakeholders and literature reviwew about the capital city, this research presents a reading of the current differentiated mobility experiences in Beirut, which creates socio-spatial segregations.

On one hand, the research investigates the chain of interests in mobility networks and systems in relation to public and private actors, and within a context seeking to provide security while lacking the appropriate infrastructure to cope with population and urban dynamics. On another hand, in reaction to the constant gridlocks of the state and the misconception of the public transport by the city, grassroots initiatives raised from the society to reframe the debates regarding the mass transit networks while promoting, exposing and making it more inclusive.

The conclusion presents a critical reflection of the potential effects of these alternatives initiatives to create structural change in the mobility and transport patterns, in the internal organization of the “informal bus system”, and for the broader society and recommendations for further impacts in the society”.

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Table of Contents

Dedication ..................................................................................................................................................ii Prologue ................................................................................................................................................... i Table of Contents ……………………………………………………………………….........…. … iii Acknowledgments ………………………………………………………………………………..... v 1. Introduction

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Social Innovation, windows of Opportunities for Social Change 2.1. Introduction 2.2.

2.3.

2.4.

2.5.

2.6.

What is social innovation?

Social Innovation through History Theorizing Social Innovation The Territorial Dimension of Social Innovation Dimensions of Social Innovation, a bridge to the Case Study Analyses

2.7. Methodology and Case Study 3.

3.1.

3.2.

The Production of Transport Injustice in Beirut Introduction: “you have to look beyond the issue of traffic” Does Income Create Externalities in Transport?

3.2.1. New Urbanisation and Travel Patterns •Urban Structure and Transport •Transportation and the Quality of Everyday Life 3.2.2. Transport and Segregation •Transport and social exclusion •Transportation equity •Transport-related social-exclusion

3.3.

Towards a Privatised City: Introduction of the Car 3.3.1. Historical Overview to Understand the Transportation System in Beirut •Beirut, a Modernised City 3.3.2. Producing Injustice in Transport Accessibility’ •Car fixation Results from an Ill-functional or Functioning State •The State is Seeking for Solutions and not Management 3.3.3. What does Public mean for Beirutis in Privatised City?

•In Beirut, Private Means Public •Being Mobile in Beirut within a Secured Territorial Mosaics 3.4.

3.5.

Creating Transport Crisis in Beirut

The State’s Vision for the Transport to Create Social Equity and Sustainable Urban Development

3.4.1. Change the Balance of Beirut Streets •Role of Favouring the BRT by the Lebanese State Bodies: Who loses? Who Gains and by What Mechanisms of Power?

•Other Practical Solutions 3.5. Conclusion 4.

4.1.

Weaving the Fragmented City through Informal, (In)Visible and Sustainable Practices Introduction: Introduction: Informal Transit System Functions beyond a Weak State

4.3.

Emergence of Informal Practices

4.2.

Informality a Space of Power •The State in the “Everyday forms of Class Resistance” •Passive Network to Empower the Dispossessed 4.3.1.

Retirement under the bridge, “the privilege of being Lebanese”

4.3.3.

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Analysis of Van number 4, Common Practices and Mobility Providing Rides in the City through the Lens of Van Number 4 Sharing Common Knowledge to Mobilise the System, between Drivers and Riders

4.3.2.

Creating of Bus Cemeteries: Charles el Helou, Cola and Dora

4.4. Conclusion 5.

5.1.

Attempts to Restore Transport Justice in the City Introduction: Change in Beirut should meet the inherent of “-ims”

5.2.

Mapping is a Key to Articulate the City 5.2.1. Mapping, a Tool to Share Knowledge and Power •Reading between the Lines •Illustrating a Political Power

5.3.

Beyond Mapping a Schizophrenic City 5.3.1. Beirut has an identity without Names •The Pre-history of BMP, Zawarib’s initiatives •Digitalising the Informal Mass Transit Network 5.4.

Collective Action to Promote the Informal Bus System

5.4.1. Emergence of Bus Map Project to Reshape the Debate about the Bus System •Beyond a Collective Mapping, Creating a Bus Community •Sharing Knowledge to Mobilise a Wider Bus Community (workshops, discussions, etc.)

5.4.2.

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Crossing the Mosaic Borders, by Using the Map as a Tool to Stitch Beirut Reading a Sectarian and Territorial Divisions Reading Beirut as One City

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5.4.3.

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Sharing the Same Spirit as Bus Map Project Emergence of Smart Bus Stops Project Emergence of Yalla Bus App

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Conclusion and Recoomendations

5.5.

Conclusion: how socially innovative is Bus Map Project?

Acknowledgements After working intensively for one year on this research, it is the time write the final note of this Master thesis. I would not considered as a thanking note, rather, it will be a note for gratitude and appreciation.

Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my Promoter, Professor Pieter Van den Broeck, for untiring efforts at guiding me through this thesis. For all the time he invested in helping me to develop this research, and encouraging meby saying “there is always solutions”. I will forever be grateful, not only for this research, but for all the important things that I learnt from him during these two years.

To my co-promoter, who made me fall in love with Planning, Professor Christine Mady, for her continuous supporting, not only through the thesis, but also during my life. I am really greatful to have such a person in my life.

Jad and Chadi, the founders of Bus Map Project, who helped me during the research, shared with me knowledge and practices. I promise you, change will occur, but we need to mobilise our society.

To my family and my friend who always supported me during this intensive period.

Last, I would like Professor Bruno De Meulder for the program they are offering and allowing students from all over the world to come, learn and benefit from its program something like that.

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Chapter 1

Introduction

“The ultimate aim is to find a place for change again, for social innovation� (Massumi, 2002)

Figure 1: Graffiti in its innocence, invades the underused spaces, in this case the pubblic transport in Beirut Source: Nassif Haber, August 2018 Location: Train Station Mar Mikhael, Beirut

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“All the world seems to be on the move.

Asylum seekers, international students, terrorists, members of diasporas, refugees, business people, commuters, young mobile professionals, prostitutes, sport stars and many others fill the world’s airports, buses, ships, and trains.” (Sheller, Urry, 2006:1).

Despite the country and the city one lives in, traveling and commuting is immense and a daily necessity.

In transportation research, “mobility is more than derived demand” (Jensen, 2016). Mobility is the movement of people, goods and information which is shaping the societies’ cultures, powers and norms and creating social networks. Moreover, the mode of transportation could vary, as “some countries have organised public transport and others being heavily dependent on private automobile; in both cases, being pedestrian is inevitable”. There are new places to be discovered and reliance on information technology enhanced the spatial mobility of people and heightened the immobility of others. Either ways, information technology helped to cross the borders.

While researching mobility and its organisation, in some contexts it appeared insufficient.

Urban mobility in Lebanon’s capital city, Beirut was vital for reinstating a return to everyday urban life after the civil war (1975-1989), yet it had to cope with a context of instability marked by securitisation, and the lack of an organised transport system. The current reading of the mobility experiences in Beirut is attached to its citizens and urban dynamics. These dynamics as correlated to the internal relocation of the population who seek for job opportunities, the urban expansion and the marketled real estate development which are affected and impacted by transportation infrastructure. As a result, transportation crisis is created in the city which weakened the national economy of wealth and natural resources, as reducing the availability of “green” public spaces within the city, created urban sprawl and extensive suburbanisation while shattering the culture of sustainability (Perry, 2000).

Within such environment of instability embedded sectarian divisions, corruption and chaos; especially “the laisser-faire” planning approach in the everyday practices of the Lebanese (Rowe, Sarkis, 1998). Beirut is growing into a concrete jungle and parking lots (Monroe, 2016). Since the government strategies has always been favouring

the car over the re-establishment and investing in public transportation; which determined and shaped the travel behaviour of the individuals to be reliable on the private vehicles.

The research examines how individuals cope with the failing mass transit mobility networks and systems in the context of Beirut which created transport injustice. Part of the coping mechanism was the emergence of informal travel routes within the city, which are shared by pedestrians, sharedtaxi “service”, vans and buses. The main focus in the research will be on the informal bus system and its relation to the public transport network and car fixation in Beirut. The manifestation of informal practices in public transport network is characterised by its resilience to the apparent chaotic transportation system, a reflection of a mitigation tool responding to instability and the absence of public transport, which is necessary for an equitable urban mobility. However, the bus system is trapped under preconceptions of danger, inaccessibility and violent displacement of the unruly system.

Therefore, half a million cars move in and out of Beirut on a daily basis (CDR, 2017).

In reaction to the constant gridlocks of the state and to the city’s misconception about public transport, local grassroots initiatives were raised from the society to reframe the debate regarding the mass transit network. They worked on filling the gap in public knowledge to overcome the stigmatised notions of informality and to create an inclusive informal bus system through collective mapping and using information technology for the support of riders in the unstable context of Beirut, Lebanon. The aim of these initiatives is to reshape the culture of mobility patterns in the city, through exposing the system by collective actions as the young people devised bottom-up strategies that are not synonymous with the state’s interventions (Moulaert et al., 2010) with the aim to create transformation in the city, such as improving the quality of public transport and fighting its exclusion, with the slogan “Joud Bel Mawjoud” in Arabic (let’s take the existing as an opportunity and work with it) (Bus Map Project, 2015).

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Hence, this research examines “to what extent are the local initiatives provoking structural changes on the position of the public transportation in the city to be socially innovative?” To understand if these activists’ initiatives make structural difference, I will study their dynamics in relation to the mobility mechanisms in Beirut, to understand why Beirut is car oriented? Who benefits from it? Then to understand to what extent does the informal practice of public transport answer the needs of the society? Is the manifestation of informal transport socially innovative?

In this research, I will be studying Social Innovation (SI) at the local level emerging in reaction to a variety of factors such as deprivation, exclusion and alienation as chief triggers for mobilisation.

Generated transformative process would not only lead to change at the local level, but also at the level of urban regimes and policies (Moulaert et al., 2015). The satisfaction of basic needs can be a means to change, to improve and to recreate social relationships within the community for the empowerment of marginalised groups (Moulaert et al., 2010). Moreover, the work of these social initiatives will be considered as a vehicle to redevelop social links and build trust within fragmented neighbourhoods to create spatial justice. Similarly, the role of these initiatives is to make living in “common” pleasurable, enriching, equitable, and mutually rewarding. It is the creative and innovative practices that revolve around formulating, claiming and exercising what Henry Lefebvre called the ‘Right to the City’ (Moulaert et al., 2010).

Moreover, Social Innovation in this research will be studied through the lens of mobility theoretical framework; as the emphasis of travel patterns on the dimension of identity formation, social interaction and cultural production. Indeed, “Mobilities create cultures and affect human identities” (Jensen, 2015: 487). The analytical and theoretical perspective of the mobility is located within broadly defined and cross-disciplinary of social sciences. The phenomenon of mobility is not only about physical, functional logistics and flow, but is also an issue of how social subjects perceive and interact with each other In juxtaposition to transport research, I will discuss mobility from a socio-cultural and political perspectives, as mobility is more than

derived demand “moving from point A to point B” (Jensen, 2015: 479). Therefore, the main challenge here is the willingness of people to change their travel behaviours of using the car towards more sustainable forms of commuting. However, can we assume that offering equal alternatives of travel is enough to encourage people to switch to more sustainable modes of transport?

Additionally, to understand the mechanisms and dynamics of social innovation in relation transport practices, additional literatures are brought in. To illustrate, the Lebanese state strategies in favouring the car have resulted with deprivation the citizens to access public transportation; thus, literature about “injustice in transport as transport exclusion and equity” are added. In addition, “formality and informality practices” literature can unpack the dynamics behind the informal bus and vans systems and networks. Finally, since the mapping is used as a tool to promote the bus system and create inclusiveness in the city, I brought literature about “mapping and power” to understand the meaning of mapping within a geopolitical context.

The research is divided into six chapters.

Chapter two puts forward the theoretical underpinnings and the buildings blocks of the notion of Social Innovation through Moulaert et al.

(2010). The idea of Innovation in this chapter is not technological innovation, neither the development process of smart cities. Social Innovation focuses on the societal aspects as the establishment of new connections and claiming rights to the city; through using a broad socio-political, socio-cultural approach to transportation. In the case of this research, the neighbourhoods have been pivotal sites to social, economic and political exclusion.

Civil society initiatives occurred at the local level with strategies attempting redevelopment and regeneration that seek to meet unsatisfied needs of deprived population groups or to improve the quality of communication and social interaction not only within neighbourhoods and local communities, but also between these neighbourhoods and the wider urban society.

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The third chapter takes a historical perspective and overview of the production of social injustice in Beirut’s transport system since the country’s constitution in 1943, the impacts of the civil war (1975-1989), during reconstruction period and after reconnecting the war-time divided city. to draw an understanding about Beirut’s built, physical and transport environments that reveal the city’s unplanned, informal, and privatized character and sets the stage for ethnography of mobility.

The reconstruction period rebuilt stones, rather than a society; hence, sectarianism, clientelism, and feudalism among other, became embedded in the privatised society, which will be demonstrated in the second part of the chapter. In addition, new patriarchal decision of the government is to impose new public transportation project, the BRT (Bus Rapid Transit), imported from the westerners as the ultimate solution for the city’s transportation crisis while neglecting the current informal bus system.

- Bus Map Project (2015) “Open Street Map as Model & Ethos”. Available at http://blog.busmap. me/2015/07/ [Accessed on December 2017]

The conclusion is divided into both theoretical and empirical where the former discusses the role of mobility in the public enactment of class, political, and state power, and the latter will argue examine mobility from a qualitative and bottom up perspective in an unstable context, that of Beirut. It addressed social justice in relation to urban mobility, and the role of informal and social initiatives in framing the informal public transport system. Finally, some recommendations are presented for the Bus Map Project for further research.

- Sheller, M., Urry, J. (2006) “The New Mobility Paradigm”. Lancaster University. Volume: 38 issue: 2, page(s): 207-226

- Council for Development and Reconstruction (2017) “Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) for the Bus Transit (BRT) System between Tabarja and Beirut and Feeders Buses Services”. ESIA REPORT - Jensen, O. (2015) “More than A to B: Cultures of Mobilities and Travel” in: Hickman et al.

‘Handbook of Transport and Development’. Edward Elgar Publishing - Monroe, K. (2011) “Being mobile in Beirut”.

City and Society 23(1): pp. 91-111.

- Monroe, K. (2016) “The insecure city: space, power, and mobility in Beirut”. New Brunswick, New Jersey : Rutgers University Press

In the next two chapters, I show how people negotiate the city spatially through initiatives in relation to social class, politics, and state power within the context of a quasi-absent state. The underpinning idea of chapter four is to understand the functionality of the “informal public transport” system, as the network shares the road with other mode of commuting, a “self-managed system” answers the needs of certain deprived neighbourhoods. Therefore, it is important to trace the story of the system to draw a clear image about its operation in regard to the position of the state through the history. This is achieved through an inquiry into the story of the “retirement under the bridge” and van number 4.

Chapter five focuses on how the Bus Map Project initiative along other initiatives are redefining the formal- informal binary, and inviting for a participatory approach to mapping and understanding everyday mobility by buses in Beirut.

The groups’ purpose is to learn from the existing situation, to possibly affect people’s perception of the bus system in Lebanon, and encourage people to use the available public transport as an alternative to the private vehicle. Building on some of the groups’ initiatives, I will argue in the chapter that collective actions exist in Beirut, but have to face socio-cultural and political constraints; and the implications of

References:

the produced map on how various user groups experience Beirut’s spatial configuration.

- Monroe, K. (2017) “Circulation, modernity, and urban space in 1960s Beirut”. History and Anthropology 28(2): pp. 188-201 - Moulaert, F. (Ed.), Swyngedouw, E. (Ed.), Martinelli, F. (Ed.) and González, S. (Ed.) (2010) “Can neighbourhoods save the city? Community development and social innovation”. Abingdon : Routledge,

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- Moulaert, F., MacCallum, D., Mehmood, A. and Hamdouch, A. (2015) “The International Handbook on Social Innovation: Collective Action, Social Learning and Transdisciplinary Research”.

Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar - Perry, M. (2000) “Car Dependency and Culture in Beirut, Effects of an American Transport Paradigm”. Third World Planning Review (University of Liverpool), Vol. 22, No. 4 (November 2000), pp.

395-409

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- Rowe, P. and Sarkis, H. (eds) (1998) “Projecting Beirut: Episodes in the Construction and Reconstruction of a Modern City”. Munich, London, New York: Prestel-Verlag 41-67.

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Chapter 2

Social Innovation, Windows of Opportunities for Social Change

How can communities fight back in socially innovative ways?

Figure 2: A Lebanese flag shases a man standing in front of Lebanese riot police during #youstink rally in Beirut, Down Town

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Source: Michel Sparti, October 2015 Location: Beirut Central District

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2.1. Introduction

Innovation is an active force, which creates new forms and establishes new social relations.

It is a manifestation of a positive desire to make a difference. “It is an in-between, a locus for sociocultural transformation where openness for the future overcomes the traditional inertia and stasis” (Hillier, 2013: 169). Thus, the term “Social Innovation” (SI) acts as an ethical (re)making of an inclusive social space, affordable for all people including economic, social, governmental and or political agencies. SI recognizes the potential power and interrelationships of structures (capital, class, gender) and agents, both human and non-human, across space and time, especially focusing on how structuring processes affect and can be affected by agents (Moulaert et al., 2015).

SI researchers and practitioners are interested in creating network connections between, for instance, “the global and the local, and it tends to inherit some influences or impulses from the development path of a specific place and the conditions of possibility of how places and their communities came to be as they currently are now” (Hillier, 2015, p. 168). According to Moulaert (2009), “these relationships are difficult and refer as much to the problems raised by the structural, institutional determinants stemming from socio-economic history as from the potential conflicts and opportunities that the confrontation of ‘past’ and ‘future’ as well as ‘here’ and ‘elsewhere’ can generate” (Moulaert et al., 2009,20). Few approaches tackle the dynamic and relational nature of knowledge, practices and SI as it is extremely difficult to capture the dynamics of innovation.

In this respect, the analysis of “pathdependency” (Moulaert et al., 2007: 195) as embedded in territorial development helps to avoid a deterministic reading of both the past and the structural-institutional context in which territorial and community development should take place. In what Moulaert terms as the “va et vient” (Moulaert, 2009: 20) between lived development and proactive development, it is important to note that territoriality is embedded socially. Therefore, “the social relations of territorial development are not legible in generally, but necessitate an “explication of

the relationships with the territory in its entire social, political, economic, etc. dimensions” (Moulaert, 2010: 20). As Moulaert and the authors argue in the “international handbook on Social Innovation, it is needed to move from regarding SI as mostly driven by social structures, rejected essentialist realism, and comprehend SI in terms of making differences, constructed through dynamic interplay between different institutions. In this chapter, I want to discuss the process of innovation and the dynamics of social relations including power relations, to create and overcome the conservative forces, which are eager to strengthen or preserve a social exclusion situation.

I then discuss the methodology of how these conditions could be seen as windows of opportunities to produce something new in the society through a new lens for SI, i.e. the public transport in the context of Beirut, Lebanon.

2.2.

What is Social Innovation?

Reading and talking about SI shows that the concept is significant in different disciplines such as scientific research, public debates; business administration and ethical controversy (Moulaert et al., 2009). And so, policy makers, scholars, and the citizen sector in recent years, as a viable alternative for solving social problems, are getting engaged and concerned more about SI. SI such as fair trade, micro-finance, and emission trading has showed to be impactful instruments for social change. Hence, the topic of SI has increasingly become relevant in political agendas among others in Europe.

According to Moulaert et al. (2009; 2010) the term “Social Innovation” is not new, especially in the scientific world. SI has returned to prominence in the last 15 years after a period of neglect (Hillier et al.

2004). The term is used in ideological and theoretical debates about the nature and role of innovation in contemporary society, either to confront mainstream concepts of technological and organizational innovation, or as a conceptual extension of the innovative character of socio-economic development.

However, the lack of clarity surrounding the term SI can be accredited not only to its evolving analytical status, but also to its over simplistic use as it is a “buzzword in a multiplicity of policy practices

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associated”, for instance, with the rationalisation of the welfare state and the commodification of sociocultural wellbeing (Moulaert and Hillier, 2013). Then, “the appropriation of the term by “caring liberalism”, in one of its new incarnations, has added to a Babellike terminological confusion” (Moulaert et al., 2013: 13).

When SI is appropriately utilised, it is a driver of inter-disciplinarily and trans-disciplinarily in scientific research. The epistemological and methodological stances are of which SI is in continuous development.

SI is used as a label to indicate significant changes in the way society changes, how its structures are altered, its ethical standards revisited, such as there are, in the first place, the concern of collective action, socio-political actions, public uprising, spontaneous organisation, and other, as it is the driving force of many NGOs, a structuring principle of social economy organizations, a bridge between emancipating collective arts initiatives and the transformation of social relations in human communities (Moulaert et al., 2010).

Furthermore, as stated by Moulaert, “SI not only happens within a spatial context, but is also as ‘transformer’ of spatial relations” (Moualaert, 2009: 14). He defines SI as the satisfaction of alienated human needs through the transformation of social relations: transformation which leads the governance systems to improve, so the later guide and regulate the allocation of goods and services meant to satisfy those needs, and which establish new governance structures and organisations as political decisionmaking systems, interfaces, firms, allocation systems, and so on)” (Moulaert, 2009). Territorially speaking, this means that SI involves, among others, creating social transformation in relation to space, and reproduces place-bound and spatially exchanged identities and culture, and the establishment of place-based and scale-related governance structures.

This implies, that SI is “quite often either locally or regionally specific, or/and spatially negotiated between agents and institutions that have a strong territorial affiliation” (Moulaert, 2009: 14).

2.3.

Social Innovation through History

Referring to Moulaert et al., although the term SI is a new term, yet the concept is not new, the concept goes back to the eighteen century to this point cited up the most significant dimensions of SI. Therefore, it is important to go back in time to trace the history of social innovation, to study the relationship between social innovation and the pressures related to societal changes, and understand how the mechanisms of problems and recovery both provoked and accelerated social innovation.

For example, Weber and Schumpeter examine the relationship between SI and the pressures bound up within societal changes, and demonstrate how the mechanisms of “crisis and recovery” both provoke and accelerate SI. Moreover, SI can occur in different communities and at various spatial scales, but it is necessary on process consciousness raise, mobilisation and learning (Moulaert et al., 2009).

Benjamin Franklin evoked SI in proposing minor alterations as to ‘one-off’ innovation within the social organization of communities (Mumford, 2002). Emile Durkheim, in 1883 highlighted the importance of social regulation in creating division of labour, which accompanies technical change, where the latter can be only understood within the framework of an innovation or renovation of the social order to which it is relevant. Later at the start of the twentieth century, Max Weber established in his work on the capitalist system, the power of rationalisation. He examined the relationship that exists between social order and innovation, a theme was later by many philosophers in the 1960s. He also affirmed that changes occur in the living conditions do only determine the social changes. Individuals, in this case introduce a behaviour variant, often seen by others as deviant and can lead to decisive influence on the society. The new behaviour can become established social usage if it is spread and developed. Therefore, Weber and Durkheim emphasised that changes occur in social relations or in social organisation within political and economic communities (Moulaert, 2009).

In the 1930s, Joseph Schumpeter considered that structural change in the organization of society is defined by SI or within the network of organizational forms of enterprise or business. Innovation theory of Schumpeter went far beyond the traditional way

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in thinking about economy, and appealed to an ensemble of sociologies as cultural art, economy, politics, and intergroup or community relations (Moulaert, 2009). He focused on the relationship between development and innovation where strong technical economic innovation which, considered of prime importance and where the entrepreneur is viewed as a leader who, despite facing many difficulties, is able to introduce innovation into modes of societal organization (Moulaert and Nussbaumer, 2008).

Furthermore, the French intellectuals of the “Temps des Cerises” (1970) organized a debate about the transformation about the society from a political and social perspective, and the role of students revolts, academics and workers. Meanwhile, major part of the debate echoed in the journal “Autrement” with contributions from such prominent figures as Pierre Rosanvallon, Jacques Fournier and Jacques Attali. Chambon, David and Devevey (1982) in their books discussed the issues stressed on this debate and remained complete open synthesis on the subject of SI until today (Moulaert, 2009). Chambon et al. (1982) established another link to introduce the links between social or individuation needs, with social changes and state’s role. Hence, a full picture of SI provides a platform for global discussion.

Finally, returning to SI today, as a subject for research and a principle for structuring collective action, and it is related to the findings described above. As stated by Moulaert et al, in practice, “SI signifies satisfaction of specific needs thanks to collective initiative, which is not synonymous with state intervention” (Moulaert, 2009: 15). In such manner, the state can act simultaneously as a barrier to SI and provoke arena of social interaction, where SI within the spheres of state or market. Besides, SI can be re-read by Franklin, not only as a solution for life problems, but also as a way to rediscover the world in an artistic way, in which society and its structures could be rethought creatively (Mumford, 2002). For instance, Deleuze argues that: “the aim is… to find the conditions under which something new is produced” (Deleuze and Parnet, 1987 cited in Hillier, 2013: 170), a way to re-invent society in an innovative way.

“The return of social innovation” as Moulaert et al. state, both in scientific literature and political

practices, “is demonstrated by the use of the concept as an alternative to the logic of the market, and to the generalized privatization movement that affects most systems of economic allocation; it is expressed in terms of solidarity and reciprocity” (Moulaert and Nussbaumer 2005, 2005: 16).

2.4.

Theorizing Social Innovation

As in Moulaert et al. 2005, the contemporary social science on SI is increasingly evolving into a multiand even interdisciplinary concept, which resulted from various fields that do not always fully overlap with a particular discipline. The first field is that of “management and economics”. For instance, within social science literature, some authors emphasise on opportunities for improving to improve the social capital, which would allow economic organisations to function better or to change; thus, producing positive effects as for the profit and non-profit sectors on SI. This stress on and reinterpretation of social capital, which has also been taken on board in management science, would include economic aspects of human development, an ethical and stable entrepreneurial culture, and so forth, and thus facilitating the integration of broader economic agendas. For example, those which advocate strong ethical norms (fair business practices, respect for workers’ rights) or models of stable reproduction of social norms (justice, solidarity, cooperation, etc.) within the very core of the various entrepreneurial communities.

However, “the price paid for this sharing of the social capital concept across disciplines is the latter has become highly ambiguous, and its analytical relevance is increasingly questioned” (Moulaert et al, 2005: 74).

The second field is that of “arts and creativity” (Moulaert et al, 2005: 74) looking at the role of SI in social and intellectual creation as tools of social change.

In effect, the arts reinvent themselves as sociology, as in the “sociologist as an artist” approach as in Du Bois and Wright (2001). Michael Mumford (2002) unlocks this idea by approaching SI in the sphere of art and creativity. He covers many articles on SI in the sphere of “arts and creativity”, posits a range of innovations from the “macro-innovations” of Martin Luther King, Henry Ford or Karl Marx to “micro-innovations” such

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as “new procedures to promote cooperative working practices, the introduction of new core social practices within a group or the development of new business practices” (Mumford, 2002: 253). The latter presents his view of SI referring to three main “lines of work”: i) the life history of notable people whose contributions were mainly in the social or political arena; ii) the identification of capacities leaders must possess to solve organizational problems; and iii) the introduction, development, and adaptation of innovations in industrial organizations (Mumford, 2002).

The third field is stirring the frontier of the political science and public administration debates.

Criticising the hierarchical character of bureaucratic and political decision making systems are well recognized and are at the root of new schemes concerned with change in the political system and, above all, in the system of public administration (Moulaert et al., 2005). Many approaches or initiatives have been developed through using territorial decentralisation (as regionalisation, enlarging the power and competence base of neighbourhoods) in order to promote accessibility for citizens to governance and government; make the public administration more transparent, have a democratic administrative system through promoting horizontal communications rather than vertical; thus, reduce the number of bureaucratic layers. All are designed in a manner to give more control and influences for both, users and other stakeholders. In this case, “SI creates a bottom-linked approach in which centrality of initiatives taken by those concerned, while stressing on the necessity of institutions that would enable, gear or sustain these initiatives” (Moulaert et al., 2013: 27).

The last field concerns SI in “territorial development”. Moulaert et al. (1990, 2002) stress that local development problems in the context of European towns: the diffusion of skills and experience amongst the various sectors involved in the formation of urban and local development policies; the lack of integration between the spatial levels; and, above all, neglect of the needs of deprived groups (marganilisation) within urban society. Moulaert (2002) in the “Integrated Area Development approach” (IAD) or (Développement Territorial Intégré) project suggests organising neighbourhood

development, which brings together the various spheres of social development and the roles of the principal actors by structuring them around the principle of SI. This principle links innovation to the satisfaction of human needs in social relationships of governance. In particular, it defines the role of socio-political capacity (or incapacity) and access to the necessary resources in achieving the satisfaction of human needs; this is understood to require participation in political decision making within structures that previously have often been alienating, if not oppressive (Moulaert et al. 2010). In such manner, the involvement of civil society in building new forms of territorial cooperation can foster more democratic forms of governance, as bottomlinked governance, open up new range of economic activities to social services as well as culture and stimulate entrepreneurs (Moulaert, Van den Broeck, 2018).

2.5. The Territorial Dimension of Social Innovation

The uncertainty of the status of local territories as breeding grounds of socially innovative development is well known. On the one hand, these territories very often have lived long histories of “disintegration: being cut off from prosperous economic dynamics, fragmentation of local social capital, breakdown of traditional and often beneficial professional relations, loss of quality of policy delivery systems, etc.” In this context, Moulaert (1995, 2000: 19) has called such areas as disintegrated areas. On the other hand, several of these areas have hosted for dynamic populations and creative migration flows, which have been tools in (partly) revalorising from the past the social, artistic, institutional, and professional assets, discovering new assets and networking these assets towards the future (Moulaert et al., 2009). In this sense, there is an artificial split within the local community-based development literatures the more traditional as “needs satisfaction, problem solving approach, and the more diversity-based, futureoriented community development approach which looks in particular at the identification of aspirations, strengths and assets of communities to move into a future of hope” (Moulaert et al., 2010: 53).

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The need to satisfy and assess the unanswered need for development approaches cannot be separated, either for the purpose of analysing local socio-economic development trajectories of the past, or for the construction of alternatives for the present and future (Moulaert et al., 2010). The philosophy of the IAD approach is based on the satisfaction of basic needs in ways that reflect the alienation and deprivation of the past, and the aspirations of the new future. This satisfaction should be effectuated by the combination of several processes. According to Moulaert (2009; 2010; 2013): • Satisfaction of needs: is to reveal certain unanswered needs, and of potentials to meet them, through social movements and institutional dynamics, within and outside the state sphere, with a focus, but a non-exclusive focus, on the local scale; • Empowering the dispossessed: is to integrate of groups of deprived citizens into the labour market and the local social economy production

systems (referring to activities such as housing construction, ecological production activities, and social services); • Education and professional training: is to lead to integration into the labour market, but also to more active participation in consultation and decision making on the future of the territory.

The institutional dynamics must continually enrich “local democracy”, the relations with the local authorities and the other public as well as private partners situated outside the locality but taking part in the local development. The local community could in this way pursue to regain control of its own governance, and put its own actions and assets at the heart of this process of renaissance.

Looking more closely at how the above processes are materialised, IAD is socially innovative in at least two senses. From a sociological perspective, first IAD involves innovation in the relations between individuals and among groups. The organisation

Diagram 1: Dynamics of Social Innovation in relation to Social Exclusion/Inclusion Source: Moulaert et al. (2015), p. 82

of groups and communities, the building of communication channels between advantaged and disfavoured people within urban society, the creation of a citizen’s democracy at the local level (neighbourhood, small communities, groups of homeless or long term unemployed, etc.) are elements of innovation in social relations. Governance relations are a part of the social relations of Integrated Area Development; without transformation of institutions and practices of governance, “it becomes more or less impossible to overcome the fractures caused by different disintegration factors within communities and their local territories (Moulaert et al., 2007: 196).

Moreover, SI within IAD evokes the social aspect of the social economy and social work. The challenge here is to meet the basic needs of groups of people dispossessed of a low-income, of access services and opportunities as education and other benefits of an economy from which their community has been excluded. There are different opinions on the nature of fundamental needs, but a consensus is emerging that a contextual definition is needed, according to which the “reference ‘basket’ of basic needs depends on the state of development of the national/regional economy to which a locality belongs” (Moulaert, 2009: 21).

Therefore, the combination of SI stresses the importance of creating bottom-up linked approach connected with institutions for better participation and decision-making, as well as for production and allocation of goods and services (Moulaert, 2009). Then, to mobilise the political forces, which are capable of promoting integrated development depends on the empowerment of citizens deprived of necessary material goods and services, as well the social and political rights. Such mobilisation has to involve a “needs-revealing process different from that of the market, which reveals only necessities expressed through a demand backed up by purchasing power, the only demand that is recognized in orthodox economics” (Moulaert, 2009: 21). In a decently working Welfare State-economy societies and groups, without adequate purchasing power could address themselves to the existing systems of social support and welfare for the fulfilment of their needs. But these sources of goods and services are often downsized by the austerity policy of the neoliberal state or by the dominance of allocation criteria based on personal merits; therefore, they do not

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always provide a suitable level or quality (Hillier and Moulaert, 2010). Experiences of alternative territorial development, inspired by socially innovative are steered by agencies and processes, expose the different aspects of the double definition of SI at the level of cities and urban neighbourhoods.

There exist many different orientations for strategies of SI at the level of neighbourhoods and localities. The rich diversity of research into different initiatives permits studying the relationship between path-dependence, the present and the future of neighbourhoods, as well as between the examination of and the strategies for territorial and community development (Moulaert, 2009).

To illustrate, many case studies were studied

by Moulaert et al. which promoted inclusion into different spheres of society (especially the labour market, education system and socio-cultural life), while the political rationale is to give a ‘voice’ to groups that have been traditionally absent from politics and the politico-administrative system at the local and other institutional/spatial scales (Moulaert et al., 2005: 71).

• In Naples, an informal social network was established by Catholism-rooted group who volunteered in helping the deprived people in Quartieri Spagnoli area. Over time, the established network developed into institutional capacity and became a node in the management of funds from different governmental levels such as the EU or the Naples city council (Moulaert et al., 2005).

• The Quartiers Agentur Marzahn NordWest in Berlin is a local mediating organisation or “Integrated Neighbourhood action” which carries out the job of project coordination, activation and participation of inhabitants with associations and initiation of projects in the neighbourhood. After then German resettled from the Soviet Union, integrating groups in the in the governance structures of neighbourhood management was a successful idea since it established a direct link between the “needs and demands” of this marginalised group and the resources to tackle them (Moulaert et al., 2005).

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• The BOM (meaning Bomb, but also the Dutch acronym of the Neighbourhood Development Corporation) was born in reaction to the economic, sociocultural and physical decay of the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Antwerp. The concept of community-based economic regeneration and IAD was promoted in BOM. The idea was to bring together the resources to improve the living conditions of the most excluded inhabitants, to reintegrate them into the economy life through trainings, individual counselling and so forth, as a way to reinstate the economic base of the district. Besides, BOM has networks with private and public partners from different spheres in the society organised at different levels such local, regional, national and EU (Moulaert et al., 2005).

• American anthropologists initiated a project in Cardiff, Wales to record the heritage and social history of the marginalised neighbourhoods which property development was threatening them. The project’s aimed to promote building awareness and critical engagement of residents by using cooperative, collective arts-based projects (Moulaert et al., 2005).

Other cases have been also recorded that show, social innovation initiatives across different institutional settings and through different trajectories, the relevance of the social dimension in innovation dynamics and in political governance.

However, these relationships are difficult and refer as much to the problems raised by the factors raising from socio-economic history as from the potential conflicts and opportunities which confrontation of “past and future as well as here and elsewhere can generate” (Moulaer, 2009: 22).

In this respect, the analysis of “path-dependency as embedded in territorial development helps to neglect a deterministic reading of both the past within a structural–institutional context in which territorial and community development must take place (Moulaert, 2009).

Moreover, it is important to examine from the previous case studies, the impact of social innovation on the society and by which tools it mobilised the deprived society.

Therefore, by considering the “va et vient” of Moulaert (2009) between the lived and the proactive developments, some observations have generated on the societal relations and territorial developments: 1. In general terms, the social relations of territorial development are illegible, but an explanation of the nature of development is needed, also the type of socio-political development, the nature of the strategic actors and the relations with the territory, in its entire social, political, economic, etc. dimensions.

2. To analyse the social capital within territorial social relations, one must avoid an instrumental interpretation. The social capital is socially embedded and it is not a repetitious observation, rather a confirmation of a divided nature of social relations with link with the economic, cultural and symbolic capital of persons or groups of people, as they belong to particular social communities. From this viewpoint, “SI means not only the (re)production of social capital(s) in view of the implementation of development agendas, but also their protection from fragmentation/ segmentation, and the valorisation of their territorial and communal specificity through the organization and mobilization of excluded or disfavoured groups and territories” (Moulaert, 2009: 22-23).

Finally, SI in territorial development must be addressed through a detailed study of how social and territorial logics interrelate with each other. In Lefebvre’s (1991) terms one should indeed devote reflection to the following questions: -How does SI relate to the social production of space?

-Should it only be interpreted in terms of production or is it also part of conceived and lived space?

In its territorial dynamics, SI is seen as the representation of space, or even of spatial practice.

However, its materialisation in reality depends significantly on its “relations with the lived space and its perception; in fact it is this lived space that will produce the images and the symbols to develop a new language, and the Imagineering tools to

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conceptualize a future social space” (Moulaert et al., 2009: 23).

The integrating dynamics had to come from SI through i) the satisfaction of unsatisfied or alienated human needs; and, ii) innovation in the social relations between individuals and groups in neighbourhoods and the wider territories embedding them. In an ideal situation, both views of SI should be combined (Moulaert et al., 2002). For example, strategies of neighbourhood development should follow the satisfaction of failed needs, by creating relations in governance through innovation the neighbourhood and with broader communities (Moulaert et al.

2002). These governance relations include the communication with and the embedding into the politico-administrative scheme of the democratic states of the countries to which the societies belong.

Therefore, innovation in governance relations also means innovation is an illustration of democracy and governance of government institutions.

2.6.

Dimensions of Social Innovation, a bridge to the Case Study Analyses

Following Moulaert et al., 2005 on SI in all the above approaches, the definitions of SI are both analytical and normative. Various dimensions of SI are stressed previously in the case studies, but I stress on three dimensions which are occurring in interaction with each other (Moulaert et al., 2005).

—Satisfaction of human needs, which are not currently met, either because ‘not yet’ or because ‘no longer’ perceived as important by either the market or the government. This stresses on how to answer the satisfaction of alienated basic needs, knowing that these may vary among societies and communities (content/product dimension).

of human needs and participation (empowerment dimension). Being engaged in a mainstream debate on innovation, one can argue that innovation process is an effective process that contribute to higher productivity and greater competitiveness of an organisation, community or a firm. De facto, SI concept is more comprehensive, contextcommunity dependent, and does not have the means to access easily within a mainstream context.

Hence, more assessment approach is needed.

In its broader context, SI means changes in institutions and agency that are meant to contribute to “social inclusion” (Moulaert et al.,2005) since the reason SI has emerged in reaction to exclusion from access to services, marginalisation, alienation, and lack of opportunities and rights, and so on.

Hence, Social inclusion refers “to a condition of (partial) exclusion at the outset, a condition that is to be transformed through institutional changes and agency. Understanding the nature of social exclusion processes means an “essential step in the process of determining inclusive actions and strategies” (Moulaert et al., 20105: 75). Referring to Moulaert et al. in their publications, “Institution” used here in its most general meaning, it set of laws, rules and regulations, and organisations, which could be practiced in formal and informal socialisation mechanisms to reach a certain stability with/or constancy over time in the form of lifestyles, and laws and rules of controlling behaviour and sanctioning, as well as organisations as institutionalised multimember agents.

—Changes in social relations, especially with regard to governance system, which enable the mentioned previously satisfaction, but also increase the level of participation of all, but especially for the deprived groups in society (process dimension).

Moreover, the changes which results from innovation initiatives do not necessarily imply to create something new. For instance, the reintroduction of free education, or free events of all, can re-establish a return to the old institutional arrangements or agencies. Hence, SI means a return to the old institutional forms that could be also be considered as “reformist”. Such as, the concept novelty could compromise returning mechanisms of exclusion towards inclusion in case the old serves for better inclusion. To note, if the old was conservative, bureaucratic and top-down, new innovations are needed to create better future.

—Increasing the socio-political capability and access to resources needed to enhance rights to satisfaction

Also, in contrast to mainstream approaches to innovation, Moulaert et al. (2010) discuss

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innovative behaviour as “optimal behaviour”, which means “best practices are a normative concept, without real meaning in reality or for actual socially innovative strategies” (Moulaert et al., 2010: 14). Last, considering `SI is a good practice or good formulae when it contributes for a better inclusive future.

social justice in the city. Social innovative type can be a mean to open-up for new people to come (Hillier, 2013) and it is based on human capacity to respond to problems, challenges and potentials. Thus, people can create, improve and reshape their places with the aid of knowledge (Albrechts, 2005).

Talking about SI at the local level, these initiatives can generate a diverting tendency in prioritising the local as the appropriate level for societal changes. The risks can vary between having a danger of socio-political localism, as an exaggeration belief in the power of the locals that will improve the world while disregarding: “the intercalary spatiality of development mechanisms and strategies” (Moulaert et al., 2005; 78). The second danger is local existential, when everything needs should be satisfied within the local by the local institutions. For socio-economic, cultural and political reasons this does not make sense. Last, misunderstanding subsidiarity could be also a problem. In this case, the higher state and economic powers in the city, there is tendency to shed budgetary and different responsibilities to lower the local levels. SI, therefore at the local level should be understood in an “institutionally and spatially embedded way, including innovation in local community dynamics, according to the norms for innovation in development agenda, agency and institutions; innovation in the articulation between various spatial levels, benefiting social progress at the local level” (agendas, institutions, responsibilities) (Moulaert et al., 2005: 196).

Building on this literature review of SI; I focus in the following methodology section on the role of SI in claiming back rights to the city, fighting against exclusion through the lens of transport and mobility.

Such practices can be considered as transformative practices, when they focus on the structural problems in the society. Hence, it is necessary for these new concepts and to reshape the way of thinking (Albrechts, 2015). So in order, to image new conditions and constraints differently, one has to deal with history and overcome history. Therefore, “Change truly sticks through its institutionalisation into the structure, systems, social norms, shared values, and most of all culture” (Albrechts, 2005: 19).

Besides, transformative changes in the city rarely occur in instant revolutions. In other words, to create the structural change in the city, it is necessary to break the box, which means the planners, authorities, decision-makers, citizens should be taken out of their comfort zones and to confront their beliefs and to look for new innovative ideas that can reinstate

2.7. Methodology and Case Study

From the literature review, SI can’t be classified as “idealistically utopian” (Moulaert et al., 2005: 196). In fact, SI has a rooted character and related to the logic and practice of society’s struggle that grew as reaction against deprivation and alienation processes, in which large groups of individuals or groups became the victim of a bureaucratic, top-down, conservative institutional setting (González et al., 2010).

In this research, I am following Moulaert et al. philosophy on SI in the stream of territorial development since the focus of SI in this case is within the context of local development of communities and neighbourhoods and the inclusion of excluded groups into different spheres of the society. The territorial development perspective of SI’s explicitly refers to an ethical position of social justice and values, as intentionally planned and implemented to solve problems of social exclusion.

I will examine the theory of Social Innovation, which emerged in reaction to deprivation and exclusion to reproduce social justice in the city through the lens of mobility and Transport, in Lebanon’s capital city, Beirut.

Mobility in this case, is vital to the survival and development of the urban life (Jensen, 2015).

Indeed, unlike the language of transportation research, the idea behind mobility is more than a derived demand, as person move from point A to B. In the city, transport could be about commuting from A to B, whereas mobility is about movement,

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which takes passengers into the realm of culture, norms, emotions and the like. In other words, mobility which I will discuss in this research is not only about physical, logistics and functional of flows, but also about socio-spatial phenomenon that interact with each other. Mobility, hence establishes spatial connectivity within the city, but also creates socialites, knowledge and shared culture (Jensen, 2015). However, when it comes to everyday practices of mobility in unstable context as perpetual instabilities, insecurities, conservative systems, weak planning policies, gaps between social classes and so forth, mobility can cause marginalisation for some people; therefore, there is production of transport injustice. In this case, some individuals adapt to such injustice through creative strategies (self-managed) to ensure their participation to mobility within the city.

The rise of automobiles, which “allowed people to feel modernity in their bones” (Daffy, 2009: 8) brought with it, to the post-colonial Beirut prescription on how the citizens should use and move through the city by imposing certain types of moral and civic geographies (Monroe, 2017). In this research, I will examine the “historiography” of vehicles by exploring its discourse about circulation and movement in an insecure city represents conveys ideas about modernity, civility, and urban public space. The car was a symbol of modernity, freedom and democratisation, which created autonomy and new form of agencies in Beirut.

However, through history of Beirut after 1943 until today, mobility in Beirut brought different realities.

Since Beirut is facing perpetual instabilities, mobility can’t be taken for granted, as it is no longer an everyday practice equally available to all, it varies with “spatial positionality” (Buhr and McGarrigle, 2017: 232). Since the strategies followed by the Lebanese State resulted by producing transport injustice in the city. Part of individuals coping mechanisms was to rely on the private vehicles as the only mean to commute, which created today a transportation crisis. In reaction for being excluded to access mobility rights in the city, informal travel routes emerged within the city, characterised by being resilient to the apparent chaos in the transportation system. Such practices are considered mitigation tool to the instability and the absence of adequate public transport,

which is seen necessary for an equitable urban mobility. Yet, this informal mass transit is perceived as being unsafe, unregulated or simply: it does not exist. In reaction the mechanisms of production transport injustice and the culture of perception of public transport, grassroots initiatives emerged to reshape the debate about the public transport in Beirut, through mapping the bus system and promoting a culture of public transport in order to create structural changes in the society.

To note, in the previous studies about social injustice in transport, social innovation was not defined. Indeed, the case of Medellin, Bogota or Curitiba are about urban regeneration projects, where social justice was restored through creating transport equity and justice in the city. However, the cases didn’t study deprivation and social exclusion from SI perspective; it was rather from a practical, social injustice perspective and through Henry Lefebvre “right to the city”. In addition, the school of thought by Moulaert, there is no previous case studies about SI studied through the lens of transport. Therefore, I combined SI literature as “Can Neighbourhood Save the City?” or “the Handbook of Social Innovation” with mobility and transport literature as the “Handbook on Transport and Development” or “Geographies of Mobilities: Practices, Spaces and Subjects” with the informal mass transit system and network. The combination of the elements from each discipline will answer to the main research question in a creative way.

Consequently, the research purpose is a theoretical abstraction rather than statistical generalization (Van den Broeck, 2010). I follow a trans-ductive approach, which allows me as a researcher to have back and forth interactions with both theory and empirical work, while gradually developing questions and answers. Referring to Van den Broeck (2010) method in the empirical research, I applied a constructivist case study methodology. The methods used in the research are for the development of a framework can explain the decisions made behind the scenes; the main primary and secondary data are based on semi-structured, in-depth interviews with key actors, scientific articles and books, researches conducted by students, regulations documents and reports, articles and websites. Also, the fieldwork is

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where I do a thick comprehensive analysis and street level analysis based on participatory observations, ethnography and interviews to closely observe the practices of drivers and passengers, and interact with them, note minutes from the meetings, recordings, photographs, logbooks and videos.

Hence, the data collected were analysed and interpreted to understand what stakeholders “do” and “say”. For instance, in depth interviews with the activists, which are personal and semi-structured interviews, aimed to identify participants’ work and “what they are doing?” regarding the research subject to understand their impact in reshaping the culture of mobility. The main advantage of personal interviews was that direct contact between interviewees and me. They also, eliminated non-response rates.

Besides, semi-structured interviews offered more flexibility in terms of the flow of the interview; however they left room for different conclusions that were not initially meant to be derived or discussed regarding the research subject.

During the fieldwork, I was mapping the stakeholders involved in the transport sector in Lebanon; therefore, the interviews were done accordingly: • State bodies: - Abdel Haffiz el Kayssi: Director of Land and Maritime Transport in the Ministry of Public Works and Transport - Ziad Nasser: head of O.C.F.T.C (Office des Chemins de Fer et des Transports en Commun in French or for Railway and Public Transportation Authority in English) - Hoda Salloum: the Chair Board of Directors of Traffic Management Committee in Beirut - Ali Mohieddine: Union of Syndicates of Drivers of Public License Vehicles in Lebanon - Mathilda Khoury: Member Council at the City of Beirut - Ali Slim: the Vice President of the Federation of Dahiyeh Janoubiat Municipalities or the southern

suburbs of Beirut

- Operator of O.C.F.T.C.

- Antoine Chakhtoura : Mayor of City of Dekweneh, El-Metn, Beirut

• Bus riders and non-riders

- Paul Abi Rashed: Architect at City of Sin el Fil, ElMetn, Beirut • Architectural firms: - Lea Moukarzel: Architect at Dar Al-Handasa - Tammam Nakkash: a transport systems expert and founder of Managing Partner at TEAM International • NGO: - Fadi Gebran: President of KUNHADI - Jessica Chemaly founders of NAHNOO • Organisations: - Bahi GhubrilZawarib • Activists: - Jad Baaklini and Chadi Faraj founders of Bus Map Project - Charbel el Hajj founder of H2ECO Design, Smart Bus Stops - Ghassan Zugheib and Therese Khoury founders of Yalla Bus App • Bus Operators/Drivers”

I was, however, aware of some limitations I had during the fieldwork from being a researcher in the context of Beirut. I had multiple identities: nationality, titles and background (Architect and researcher coming from abroad), race and gender, religion, and language (accent). And so, a brief introduction was necessary for some before stating the purpose of my work. After explaining that I am a master student doing research, I had to introduce myself as being a Greek Orthodox Lebanese who lives in Dekweneh, East Beirut, to make clear that yes I am from the “Shar’ieh”(or the Eastern part of Beirut) as some people had mentioned during the fieldwork. Also, I preferred to be joined with one of the BMP [1], volunteer members during the fieldwork because I was not too familiar with the bus system network and because my gender was an obstacle for communication for some. As an example, it was easier to be accompanied by a man to talk with bus drivers/riders/operators either because of their religious background or because of their gender. In some instances, the bus drivers/owners were very nice and helpful; however, in another instance, one of them tried to harass me both physically and verbally. Furthermore, during one of the interviews, I was told to either speak Arabic or French, or he would cancel the interview. My Lebanese dialect of speaking three languages at the same time was a bit confusing for him. Besides, I preferred to do the site visits during the weekdays and before noon or during late afternoon because the transport hubs will be more crowded by passengers as well operators.

On the other hand, getting interviews with the state bodies was easier especially after stating that I am a research student. The only exception was Abdel Haffiz Kayssi, who cost me two trips to Lebanon trying to get an interview with him. I tried everything, but only managed to interview him after through a favour from Ali Mohieddine, who is a good friend of his. . But the fun part of the fieldwork is when I went with a BMP member to meet the council member of Beirut, Mathilda Khoury, our questions were provocative for her, so she ended the meeting after less than 20 minutes. Moreover, working and sharing ideas with the founders of Bus Map Project

- Ali Mawla: Owner of Airport Line - Van number 4 operator - Firas Masri: operator of Bus number 2 - Eiz Din: operator of Buses number 15 and 25 - Estephanand Sakr drivers and operators - Shared taxi “service” drivers, bus and van drivers

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was really beneficial for my thesis, both of them, they were helpful.

Hence, the collected empirical data was used to build a valid explanation which will show in chapter 3, 4 and 5 of how the practices of informal transport can be connected to create an equitable and suitable system to serve the needs of their communities, and then go beyond the physical and direct specifications.

To understand the objective of the research, I divided the main case stuy, Beirut Transport in relation to social innovation into three parts.

The first part will be a study of the production transport injustice resulted by transport hubs under the bridges. Then, this research will focus on the operational system of the current mass transit system and network in Beirut, such as L’auto-gestion de l’éspace. Finally, this research will look towards the attempts of the initiatives to create a structural change for this sector, such as promoting an inclusive public transport system. Altogether, this makes an interesting case study for analysing the dynamics of SI through the lens of public transportation. Also, it is important to understand how these dimensions strongly interconnect. For instance, when local initiatives in Beirut answer public transportation needs, this does not only tackle “tangible” needs, but also initiates mobilisation to empower local groups of the bus community, to fight against topdown politico-institutional systems (Moulaert et al, 2010). Therefore, it is imperative to discuss these dimensions in their dynamic relationships.

Referring to Van den Broeck, it is important also to understand the interplay between the individual and collective actors and different social groups to assess how socio-territorial innovation capacities are differentially embedded in an institutional frame, and how they can be mobilised.

All this highlights the importance of looking at the socio-political content with regard to socio-territorial innovation (Van den Broeck, 2010). Because at the end, if change will occur, the current actors involved have to step out of their comfort zone to help the society to improve.

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In conclusion, I chose to study social innovative initiatives in Beirut because I want to demonstrate the overt struggles and challenges that face anyone re-creating a change in a polarised, sectarian and corrupted city. Through the analysis, I will argue that the post-war reconstruction period only rebuilt stones and not people, whose lifestyle became clientelistic and sectarian. Then, I will explicitly address the socio-political concerns of who is benefitting from the societal changes? And who is attempting change?

On the other hand, building on the literature review of SI in relation to transportation, I want to examine how these initiatives, whether the informal practices in public transport or the young activists are answering the unsatisfied needs, challenging the current transport, culture and norms in city, empowering the dispossessed while creating a broader impact on the society.

be discussing the role and impacts of these initiatives in the following chapters through answering these questions: i) why did these local initiatives emerge? ii) How did social initiatives emerge? iii) How wide their impacts? iv) And what is the content of these initiatives to mobilise the community?

- Albrechts, L. (2005) “Creativity as Drive for Change”. Planning Theory, 4:247-269.

Notes:

- Du Bois, W. and Wright, R. (2001). “Applying Sociology: making a better world”. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

1. BMP is the Bus Map Project, a grassroots initiatives, which map the bus informal routes, I will discuss this initiative in details in Chapter 5

- Buhr, F., and McGarrigle, J. (2017) “Navigating urban life in Lisbon: A study of migrants mobilities and use of space”. Social Inclusion 5(4): pp. 226-234.

- Cresswel, T., Merriman, P. (2011) “Geographies of Mobilities: Practices, Spaces, Subjects”. Ashgate - Hillier, J., Moulaert, F. and Nussbaumer, J. (2004) “Trois Essais sur le Rôle de l’Innovation Sociale dans le Développement Spatial”. Géographie, Economie, Société 6:2, 129–52.

For instance, to what extend the mapping can change the perception regarding transportation options, does it empower the bus community and change of relationship between the public transport and other mode of transportation? Since the main goal of all the initiatives is their “effects” on the city, to stitch the fragmented city through promoting the public transport, bond the social ties between all the communities, as the public transport is one base for a better social infrastructure in the neighbourhood. I will

- Hillier, J. (2013) “’Towards DeleuzeanInspired Methodology for Social Innovation and Practice” pp.169-180 in Moulaert, F. et al. (2013) ‘The International Handbook on Social Innovation: Collective Action, Social Learning and Transdisciplinary Research’. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar - Jensen, O. (2015) “More than A to B: Cultures of Mobilities and Travel” in: Hickman et al.

‘Handbook of Transport and Development’. Edward Elgar Publishing

Social Innovation

1. Satisfaction of Needs 2. Empowering the Disspossessed

References

Local Initiatives (Grassroots initiatives)

3. Changing Social Relations

• • • • • • •

- Hickman et al. (2015) “The Handbook on Transport and Development”. Elgar

deprivation alineation lack of opportunities Top-down policies absence of planning system Social segragation Transport Injustice

- Moulaert, F., Martinelli, F., Swyngedouw, E., Gonzalez, S. (2005) “Towards Alternative Model(s) of Local Innovation”. Urban Studies, Vol. 42, No. 11, 1969–1990, October 2005

Transportation

- Moulaert, F., Martinelli, F., Gonzalez, S. and Swyngedouw, E. (2007) “Introduction: Social Innovation and Governance in European Cities.

Urban development between path-dependency and radical innovation”, European Urban and Regional Studies 14:3, 195–209.

Diagram 2: Studying the local initiatives through SI and Transportation, to analyse if they create any impact on the local level Source: Author, 2018

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- Moulaert, F., MacCallum, D., Hillier,J., Vicari Haddock S. (2009) “Social Innovation: Institutionally Embedded, Territorially (Re)Produced” in Moulaert, M. ‘Social Innovation and Territorial Development’.

Ashgate Publishing, England. pp.11-23 - Moulaert, F., Swyngedouw, E., Martinelli, F., and González, S. (Ed.) (2010) “Can neighbourhoods save the city? Community development and social innovation”. Abingdon : Routledge - Moulaert, F., MacCallum, D., Mehmood, A. and Hamdouch, A. (2013) “The International Handbook on Social Innovation: Collective Action, Social Learning and Transdisciplinary Research”.

Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar - Moulaert, F. Christiaens,E. and Bosmans, B. (2007) “The End of Social Innovation in Urban Development Strategies? The Case of Antwerp and the Neighbourhood Development Association “BOM”. European Urban and Regional Studies 2007 14(3) - Moulaert, F., Mehmood, A., MacCallum, Leubolt, B. (ed.) (2017) “Social Innovation, as a Trigger for Transformations - The Role of Research”.

European Commission, Brussels - Moulaert,F., Van den Broeck, P. (2018) “Social Innovation and Territorial Development” in Howaldt, J., Kaletka, C., Schröder, A., Zirngiebl, M. (ed.), ‘Atlas of Social Innovation, New Practices for Social Change’. Sozialforschungsstelle, TU Dortmund University: Dortmund - Mumford, M.D. (2002) “Social Innovation: Ten Cases from Benjamin Franklin”. Creativity Research Journal 14:2, 253–66 - Van den Broeck, P. (2011) “Analysing Social Innovation through Planning Instruments: a StrategicRelational Approach” in Oosterlynck S., Van den Broeck, J., Albrechts, L., Moulaert, F., Verhetsel, A., ‘Strategic Spatial Projects, Catalysts for Change’ pp.

52-76. Routledge, London and New York.

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Chapter 3

The Production of Transport Injustice in the City

“Beirut is ugly. There is something that is lost in the city. It is that sense of freedom, but it is walls, streets and people speak differently. Have you ever seen someone riding a bike in Beirut?

Can you park your car anywhere? The city became as someone is playing an electronic game where one is constantly facing a set of obstacles that you have to navigate: cars, pedestrians, and of course the security system. [. . .] A barrier pops here, a metal bar there, a no parking zone somewhere else. You learn the vocabulary and the grammar to figure out how to win [. . .]. Of course, there is only one life and victory is getting to your goal without having wasted half a day negotiating your passage with security guard. Beirut is privatized” (Hareb, 2015).

Figure 3: Digital Art illustrating “Beirut Lost in Traffic” Source: Kristyan Sarkis, August 2014 Location: Beirut

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3.1. Introduction: “you have to look beyond the issue of traffic”

When I was having my break after a long day at one of the main public transport hubs Dora , an old man asked me why I am taking photos; he introduced himself as a taxi driver. While we were talking about the transportation crisis in the country.

He interrupted me, “look, I have the solution”, he said: “But let me first explain to you the situation, traveling every day from Beirut to Jounieh , or vice-versa can tell a lot about what is happening in our society.

One has to look for what is beyond the traffic; people are stressed because of the traffic, yet they are oppressed because we have been living in an unstable state since the end of the civil war (19751989), later the assassination of Hariri, then the summer 2006 war, and continuous events. Hence, as Lebanese, we are facing a series of events affecting the economic situation; besides, the taxes are high, food and education are expensive, there are no public services… what you see on the roads is people are in a fight for a space. There are no sidewalks to walk on; instead they are used for parking, extension of a restaurant or simply for doing Subhiyah ! We are not allowed to access the only park we have, there is no place to breathe. There is only concrete, Beirut is a growing machine…” Then he smiled, “You know, they took away the basics to living together. Prior to the war we did not know who was a Christian and who was a Muslim, but now…” Then he continues, “the solution to rebuilding the broken social ties is through a car sharing system, but the state is benefiting from the car. If tanket bezine is around 28000 LBP, the revenue to the state is around 15000 LBP, and you tell me that we will have collective public transport one day?…” Traffic problems and frustrations are linked to the society’s problems. Talking about mobility experiences, in fact, exposes the inequalities of the city itself and “getting around Beirut” is always related to larger concerns about social, political and economic life.

In this chapter, I provide a historically overview of Beirut’s built, physical, and transport environment that reveal the city’s unplanned, informal, and

privatised character. On one hand, to understand the mobility system and mechanisms which produced travel injustice in the city. Two processes, modes of privatization nourished by a laissez-faire market-led model of urban development and political sectarian conflict, have been the key power geometries shaping the city’s space in the modern era. I consider these geometrical powers, are the ways which affected the spatial arrangements, mobility and access, as a reflection of hierarchical power and control.

3.2. Does Income Create Externalities in Transport?

The supreme goal of transportation policies is to improve accessibility. The transport geography key concerns is the movement of people (to travel, commute and participate in activities), freight and information (Geurs and van Wee, 2004, Rodrigue et al., 2009, Jensen, 20105).

“Accessibility, in this term can be viewed as product of land-use and transport systems, as well as defined and operationalized in many ways and has taken on a variety of meanings” (Geurs and van Wee, 2004; 351). Focusing on transporting passengers, accessibility can be seen as the extent land-use and transport network systems allow individuals to reach their daily activities or destinations by different means of combined modes of transport (Geurs and van Wee, 2004). The relevant evaluation of transport accessibility projects and policies according to Geurs and van Wee, concerns equity and related distribution effects, and transport related to social exclusion.

To note, the social perspective on transportation accessibility has been placed as the black box research agendas of transport research; as this topic has not received much attention before within transportation geography studies, yet exceptions included. One of the very early theoretical framing of transportation has been made by Horton Cooley, a sociologist. In the word of Cooley “We think of transportation as a movement of things masses of any sort-from one place to another” (Cooley, 1984:13). However, Cooley’s theory was a far cry from contemporary mobility theory which remained an example of a very physical and economic perspective. In the recent time, the overview of transportation accessibility

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has more culturally and sociologically sensitive perspective, focusing more on equity effects, road pricing and spatial inequalities by Urry (2000, 2007), Geurs, Ritsema van Eck (2001), Rietveld et al. (2007), Sheller (2011) and Hickman et al. (2015).

The potential of analysing the mobility helps to open up the transport dimension further towards the mobility themes which include the issue of accessibility through the culture, norms and identity (Jensen, 2015). In this case, the distribution of transport effects projects and policies on accessibility can be relatively connected to the spatial distribution of socio-economic opportunities across the pollutions or for specific groups as per region or income (Geurs and van Wee, 2004). These effects, hence, can play a major role in affecting the decision making which sometimes can be considered unfair, in which equity should be included in the equation. Geurs and van Wee (2011) associate the term “equity” with fairness or justice which implies moral judgement. The term “equality” is referred to the distribution of particular goods as income, accessibility, etc. regardless the moral judgement. Therefore, a situation could be equitable, but unequal. To understand these implications on accessibility, I will first briefly discuss the urbanisation process, which affected the transport patterns, changing the quality of everyday life in different cities.

3.2.1. New Urbanisation and Travel Patterns • Transportation and urbanisation

The cities under urbanisation conglomeration have to satisfy the need of people by ensuring transportation to travel to and from the city, as well as to and from places of interests within the city.

A worldwide comparison has been conducted by Dhakal and Poumanyvong (2012) about urbanisation and road energy use. Their findings showed that the higher demography, income per capita and shared services in GDP can contribute to a higher road energy use. Hence, to lessen the impacts of urbanisation on the road energy use, two issues of urbanisation have to be addressed: urban sprawl in regard to automobile dependency. Yet, they acknowledge that the process of modernising the cities is creating

urban sprawl, since the physical environment is growing much faster than the demography. The work of Davis (1992) describes urban sprawl as making the citizen’s mobility that lives far away hyperextended.

Since the distance between the various peripheries and the city centres is increasing, highways are built to create connection among these areas, “a king of the city is being created in the form of the car” (Davis, 1992, Theodorou, 2015; 6).

The cities with simple structure, hence, are losing their cohesiveness while clearing delimitation from their surroundings. Many modern cities are growing with irregular patterns of higher and low intensity of urbanisation, rather than a centre and suburban area surrounded by countryside (Theodorou, 2015). As Edwards (2003) discusses, modernisation is constructed through train and tramlines, but mostly roads and motorways have helped to blur the lines between the city and its neighboured villages, towns or with other cities. In such way, new geographies as roads and motorways enabled drivers to traverse national, regional and continental landscapes, to create new conceptions of and possibilities for the territorialisation of the nation and domestication of nature (Monroe, 2017).

Through such infrastructures systems, Edwards (2003) discusses that people are allowed to control the space, the nature in which they live, but also they are required knowledge, organization and acceptance.

From this follows, that controlling infrastructure is an expression of practicing power over the space.

Transport lines (infrastructure) consist of choosing the location to build the trains or roads an indirect way to control and direct people movement in the city.

This dependence, as Ladd (2008) Moline (1971) and Volti (2004) clarify goes beyond spatial design. The spread of the automobile around the world, in the urban and the rural areas has “allowed people to feel modernity in their bones” (Daffy 2009; 8, Monroe, 2017; 189). On the social level, people became attached emotionally to their automobile, as symbol of democratising force that created new forms of agencies and autonomy. In the words of Sheller and Urry (2000) “It is so ingrained in consumer societies because of its successful connection with sign-values such as freedom, family, masculinity, home, and career success” (Sheller & Urry, 2000, 738). Hence,

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the car is the second most important good in terms of providing a social status in most of the world. Besides, this technology has created a powerful automobile industry, as well as an oil industry and other dependent ones (Theodorou, 2015; Monroe, 2017). Regardless the negative externalities on the global and local environment as climate change, air pollution, oil crisis and the traffic transportation congestion, the cited factors explain the reasons for the car to remain the master of cities and transportation (Ladd, 2008).

These negative impacts, Edwards (2003) sees them as systematic vulnerabilities of modernity.

• Transportation and the Quality of Everyday Life The solution to lessen the traffic and congestion problems can’t be guaranteed through changing the city’s pattern from urban sprawl to denser housing.

Sarzynaki et al. (2006) show in their research that, increasing housing centrality contributes to increase delay per capita; however, a lower distance between work and house can decrease it. This means, when the citizens live densely together the amounts of citizens need to be transported is higher; yet, the travel distance can get smaller because the passengers are living next to their destinations. This tells, denser city could be one of solution for traffic and pollution, but smart implementations are necessary.

Edwards (2003) explains, transport infrastructure and urban forms not only affect the city’s physical pattern, travel distances and air quality, but also they affect the quality of the city’s space as the way people interact within it. In modern societies, people are living precariously to achieve a balance among various infrastructures that helps the city to benefit from the natural resources; however, infrastructures create artificial environments, “walling off modern lives from nature and constructing the latter as commodity, resource, and object of romantic utopianism and reinforcing the modernist settlement” (Edwards, 2003: 26). To accommodate the flow of vehicles, transport infrastructure takes up a lot of vacant spaces. Pedestrians are deprived from accessing these vacant spaces and do not have public interaction anymore after the introduction new rules and high speed flow. Transport infrastructure creates

new type of public spaces that does not belong to the city’s public sphere, spaces lack of natural and social aspects (Habermas, 1992). According to Sheller and Urry (2000), mobility is in some respects constitutes democratic right, yet dedicating this large amounts of urban public spaces for this purpose has created barriers to connect with the city. On the one hand, auto-mobility accelerates the movement in the city and gives the freedom of choice to travel whatever time one would like, it provides flexibility and luxury way of living. To illustrate, the car has been responsible to shape and encode the physical relation of the city to its surroundings urban and rural environments as increasing the distance of travel.

On the other hand, the car has created inequality in accessibility to public spaces, which I consider it, a form of exclusion. In the word of Sheller and Urry (2000), the “Car-drivers dwelling within their cars, and excluding those without cars or without the license to drive such cars, produce the temporal and spatial geographies of cities as a function of motorised mobility” (Sheller, Urry, 2000: 754). As living without a car is being perceived not a lifestyle choice, but as form of poverty.

jobs which are only accessible by the vehicles since these poor people are dependent on public transport which is often perceived as secondary (Sheller and Urry, 2000).

Therefore, the auto-mobilised modern societies produce new kind of social inequalities, despite the efforts “at its democratization” (Sheller and Urry, 2000: 749). Such inequalities are important to shape the urban experience and should be reviewed from different perspective. Traveling through any mode of transport is based on the land-use spatial distribution of activities. In addition, the transportation system expressed as disutility experience for some passengers because of the covered distances between the departure and destination, the amount of time invested to travel and the costs to pay. Besides, the transportation system is a reflection of temporal constraints as the availability of means to travel at different times of the days, and finally it is reflection of needs, ability and opportunities. For instance, choosing the mode of transport depends on the age, income, educational level, etc. even on the individual physical condition and the travel modes availability (Geurs and van Wee, 2004; Davis, 2006) • Transport and social exclusion

3.2.2. Transport and Segregation

The impact of the car on increasing the distances between the different residential areas, leads also to increase distances between high and low income residents (Edwards, 2003). Therefore, the urban sprawl and city’s development create social segregation. The greater the distance, the greater differences can appear between the physical spaces where the more and less privileged live. Such as, those with high income “the rich communities” can afford to live in areas with better conditions, as better air quality, easy access to amenities and services and surrounded by more green spaces (Davis, 2006). On the other hand, Edwards (2003) observes that people who can’t access any of the car-based infrastructure or simply choose to live such infrastructure “are seen as strange or eccentric, ‘un-modern’ people” (Edwards, 2003:190). However, “there are still many people living in modernity who cannot afford to own a car” (Theodorou, 2015:8). Sheller and Urry (2000) add, the low income people considered as “the urban poor” are suspended from access locations and many

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Social exclusion in transport focuses on the consequences of the deprivation, as well as the processes leads to it. From a social sciences perspective, the term social exclusion was first developed by the French in 1970s, in which refers to “the loss of the ability to connect with the services and facilities needed to fully participate in society” (Titheridge et al., 2014:3). Transport research builds up the general conceptualisation to describe transport relation to social exclusion as “the process by which people are prevented from participating in the economics, social and political life of the community because of reduced accessibility to opportunities, services and social networks, due to whole or in part to insufficient mobility in a society and an environment built around the assumption of high mobility” (Kenyon et al. 2006 cited in Titheridge et al., 2014:3). As well, socio-economics, technical and cognitive capacities can control the mobility of individuals, which is described by Kauffmann et al. “mobility capital” which limits to address various opportunities every day and long term needs

(Titheridge et al., 2014).

Another important aspect in social exclusion is its relation to the distribution of access to opportunities. The question in this case is whether “exclusion or low level of accessibility is the outcome voluntarily decisions choices or not” (Geurs and van Wee, 2011: 353). For instance, imagining a person who lived in rural area all the time, where all the amenities and services are provided. Then, another person moves to the same town voluntarily. Both could face the same level of accessibility to services and amenities in town as schools, shops and so forth.

Could this situation be described as equally socially excluded? The decision of the second person by moving to rural area resulted with “social exclusion voluntarily”, as accepting to live in the countryside with low level of accessibility to services. Another example, two persons were born and lived all their life in the city. The first person has higher income and afford to another bigger city, yet chose to stay in the same city; however, the second person does not have the opportunity to do so. Should be the level of exclusion evaluated equally for both? (Geurs and van Wee, 2011). Referring to Geurs and van Wee (2011) “the freedom of choice is at its peak, many ethical literature emphasises that freedom is an important value.

The question then is: how important should the wish for participation be in the definition in order to label the poor level of access as social exclusion?

For instance, the will of people to switch from car to public transport, is not only related to the provision of sustainable alternative mode of commuting, it is rather culture, attachment and status.

• Transportation equity Which equity aspects are applicable for accessibility?

Based on a literature review, Sen (2009) concerns how social activities can benefit and burdens from an equitable distribution and according to ‘who’ is decided. The former is recognised as substantive or distributive equity and the latter as practical equity (Geurs and van Wee, 2011). Rawls (1971) discussed that there is a principle difference

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to distribute equity, such the unequal distribution of income is justified only because it benefits those who are in favour. Specifically, “inequalities can only be considered just (improving equity) if they improve the long-term prospects of the least advantaged” (Geurs and van Wee, 2011:356). In other words, the basic structure of a society has to be arranged in a manner that no social group advances at the cost of another group (Rawls, 2001).

Studying equity from transport perspective, the former concerns a fairness distribution of transportrelated benefits and costs. According to Litman (2014), transport equity is defined according to three aspects. First, “horizontal equity” which emphasises on the distribution of impacts among individuals and social groups should be considered equal in ability and need. Accordingly, all individuals in the groups must share equal resources and costs and be treated the same. Regarding the mobility need and ability, a “vertical equity” is concerned in which transportation system meets the needs of travellers with mobility impairment. Last, “vertical equity with regard to income and social class” is concerned in the distribution of transport related impacts between individuals in groups that do not have the same income or social class. The disadvantaged people, hence, who have low-income should benefit from a lower cost for commuting than others, and if the former have longer commuting times than the advantaged people. Then, there is production of commuting inequity (Litman, 2014). Excessive commuting times and high monetary costs are for low-income earners a typical form of transportation inequity” (Geurs and van Wee, 2011:356)

• Transport-related social-exclusion One of the results of vertical transport inequity is transport related social exclusion. Social exclusion is defined by Church et al. (2000) through seven features, as geographical exclusion means when the individual is deprived from accessing transport services. The time-based exclusion refers to the difficulties to plan commitments to allow adequate time for travelling. According to Preston et al. (2007), social exclusion is in this case the lack of access to those opportunities, rather than lack of these social

opportunities. In addition, the access to transport facilities as transport costs, time and the number of opportunities to travel is a key to transport exclusion.

In this sense, “excessive commuting time and monetary costs for disadvantaged groups is not only an indicator of the degree to which they are socially excluded but also a factor influencing further social exclusion, such as being prevented from participating other social activities” (Geurs and van Wee, 2004: 354)

Moreover, an overview is given by Thomopoulos et al. (2009) about equity categories that it is important to evaluate transport plans, projects and policies from equity perspective.

Certainly, individuals, communities and regions do not have the same equal access to destinations and services. It is not necessarily problematic to not have an equal access, but some distributions can be seen as unfair. Then, what is fair? For moral judgement, unfairness does not have to be only on the distribution of access to destinations, but also the absolute level of access for those who are in need.

In this case, equity includes moral judgment and it is broader than distributing opportunities. For Litman (2002), transportation equity analysis is difficult to achieve because there are several types of equity, and different ways to categorise people, numerous impacts to consider and different ways to measure these impacts to achieve an equity analysis.

Building on these kinds of investigations of transport and the impact produced by the car on the city; I focus below on the role of mobility within context of a modernised post-colonial city. First, I provide a historical overview to understand the current state of the transportation system in Beirut, and relate this state to events and decisions made to the dynamics that produced transport injustice.

Figure 4: Beirut is growin into a concrete jungle and parking lots. The city is being trapped by the mechanisms of Privatisation.

Source: Author, February 2018 Location: Dekwaneh highway, Beirut

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3.3.

Towards a Privatised City: Introduction of the Car

2- Borj Plaza (Martyrs Square) going South to Horsh Beirut, and

One of the dimensions of privatising Beirut’s built and physical landscape was and still the hegemony of the private automobiles. On March 1959, the Lebanese newspaper L’Orient announced that the operation of the tramways since 1908 would be soon replaced by trolleybuses or electrical buses (Monroe, 2017). The dismantled trams in the mid of 1960 has allowed a greater freedom of movement by increasing the reliability on automobiles. The demise of the tramways was followed later in 1980, by removing the rail transport, which had assisted in the freight shipping from the port to Beirut. These changes in the transport discourse about circulation represented and conveyed ideas about modernity.

However, the intensified vehicular congestion in Beirut witnessed today it is not new, Beirut was described since 1963, as “it has very acute traffic problem cause by the increase in the number of cars and the small number of streets” (Riachi, 1963: 111).

3- Borj Plaza (Martyrs Square) to Furn El Chebbak.

3.3.1. Historical Overview to Understand the Transportation System in Beirut The period 1950-1960s for Beirut was considered as the “golden age” when the city attained the moniker as “Paris of the Middle East” (Monroe, 2016). In 1960s, Beirut became not only fashionable destination for Americans and Europeans jetsetters, a pleasurable city for those seeking the sun, nightlife and mountain, but also it was a destination for publishing, literary and entertainment capital for the Arab world. The city had begun to benefit from its links with its surrounding. This subsequently led to an increased growth in population which necessitated the introduction of an efficient mass transit system, as horse drawn carriages could not keep up with the demand of the populous. As such, in 1908, a Belgian Company was given a concession to provide Public Transport Services as well as Electrical Street Lighting (Perry, 2000; Nakkash, 2016b). Thus, Beirut’s Tramway was born with consistency of 3 lines connecting Beirut (Perry, 2000): 1- Manara (Ras Beirut) to Nahr (Beirut River),

The process of modernising the city goes back in time, when the capital city had burst out of its fortified walls and become one of the most important cities in the Eastern Mediterranean by 1876. The port city of Beirut was a potential development node throughout history, and the current system was imprinted in the French and then Ottoman decisions that aimed to facilitate trade and modernise the city respectively.

Connecting the port to the inland facilitated trade, specifically silk trade (Hansen, 1998; Salam, 1998).

Supplying public transport through trains and tramways projected an image of modernity, and the ability to resemble the westerns towards the end of the Ottoman Empire (Salam, 1998).

In 1943 , the Republic of Lebanon was constituted along confessionalism, a consociational democracy in meant the state representation was divided among the various politico-sectarian groups within the state.

The purpose was to share power and ensure equity among the multi-sectarian population (Tabbara, 2008; Salamey, 2009). The reality of the situation, however, was that “authoritarian inner state entities” (El Khazen, 2003; Salamey, 2009) emerged and often catered for the needs of their own communities from education, to employment, to be extended into the everyday practices as affecting the mobility. With respect to transportation before the civil war (1975), several plans were proposed for Beirut to expand the road networks to facilitate the trade, while other aspects of the plans related to open public spaces as well as the transport were disregarded (Salam, 1998). Add to this, the influx of migrants and immigrants seeking refuge or opportunities for a better life, which resulted in urban growth and expansion of Beirut which superimposed with the tram lines. The spatial growth of the city was marked by population distribution along politico-sectarian affiliations (Monroe, 2017). The peak of urban growth was marked in 1950s in municipal Beirut, with appearance of two important areas: Ras-Beirut to the west and Badaro to the south. These areas were characterised by their ethnic, religious and cultural mix of residents, marked the areas as secular to some extent. Urbanisation in the Lebanese context

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was generally linked to its sectarian mosaic, with a sense of solidarity among different groups (Monroe, 2017). Secular influence was often marginalized, socio-economic clustering was not always evident, and belonging to the public at large was dominated by communal belonging, which reflected in the lack of interest in public amenities and services (Monroe, 2016). Nevertheless, various groups lived in cohesion until the war’s outbreak, when “confessional conflict took its immediate toll on the shared secular urban space” (Monroe, 2010: 76) including public spaces and the public transport system. The Lebanese political system thus contributed to “a fragmented sense of urban identity” (Monroe, 2017: 276) with an overarching sense of communal belonging rather than an urban one. Micro-cultures were formed within the capital, and only an inclusive urban process could reconcile these groups towards a common public identity. One such process could be public transport, which would cut across politico-sectarian communities, thus pollinating them with encounter and shared social practices, and contributing towards a fairer spatial experience of the city and sense of belonging. In the meantime, these micro-cultures are self-regulating to meet collective needs for both the poor and rich.

In terms of transportation, the golden period of Lebanon (1950s-1960s), also referred to as the Chehabism (Monroe, 2016) resembled other cities in the world with the tendency to promote car orientated planning schemes. The automobile began to play a bigger role in urban transport in Beirut since Lebanon’s urban culture.

With regard to transportation, the paradigm has been particularly and almost exclusively United State inspired that favoured the private automobile over the establishment of public transport systems (Perry, 2000; Monroe, 2016). The replacement for the tramways was the car as the future of transport and the ultimate solution to all transport problems.

To mention, the process of modernising through introducing the car was worldwide trend to make way for private cars and motorised buses that were seen as more comfortable and innovative.

During this period, there was an attempt to shift towards institutions away from the firm-grip of the consociational politics with the intention to overcome disorder (Monreo, 2016). Accordingly, “the development of the nation’s road network was

not only a barometer of the state’s effectiveness and modernisation but also a tool of nation-building” (Monroe, 2016: 193). Therefore, an increase number of cars required management of circulation and traffic.

The automobile ruled, similar to western countries.

Politicians then referred to cities in Europe to justify this shift under the guise of ‘modernity’ (Perry, 2000; Monroe, 2017). Based on archival research in local newspapers L’Orient, Monroe (2017) claims that the disorder of traffic in Beirut, currently referred to as ‘chaos’, actually preceded the civil war. Equally in that period, specialised police divisions and even military units participated in reinstating order to manage the traffic (Monroe, 2017). This included giving tickets for parking on sidewalks, honking, going against the designated traffic direction, passing on a red traffic light and so on. In addition, raising awareness on how to navigate in the city as a pedestrian was instated (Monroe, 2017). To note that pedestrians trespass vehicular roads nowadays as well. Nevertheless, the struggle to reinstate order continued, and Monroe states that “the anarchy and necessity of “remedying a situation that continues to worse” (15 January 1959) was tied to undisciplined drivers that use the urban roads as race tracks” (Monroe, 2017: 203), a scene still familiar in Beirut nowadays. Beirut in the 1970s had developed an urban culture dependent on cars, to witness in 1973, that the buses played minor role in people’s daily travel.

According to Perry (2000), the motorised persons in Beirut in 1970s were split between 52% motorists, 9% buses and 39% relied on the shared service or Taxis. To mention, there are no statistics regarding the transportation patterns in Beirut during the war period and few years later until 1994. De facto, that there were virtually no buses in regular operation within Beirut streets. Later, studies done from 1998 to 2016 estimated that automobiles constitute almost 80% of all passenger trips, respectively, the remainder taken by private and public buses with 18% for taxi-services, and 1.7% between vans and buses, and 0.3% for pedestrians to result with 1000 000 cars entering Beirut everyday (Council of Development and Reconstruction, 2016; Mikhael, 2017; Mohieddine, 2018; Mohtar, Semaha, 2016). In the words of Salloum (2018) “an illustration of the current situation, the entire Lebanese fleet of licensed commercial passenger transport vehicles is made up of 39,000 vehicles (Salloum, 2018).

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The war in 1975 and until 1989 affected the road network, whereby many roads were disconnected through physical blocking, and access along Damascus Road, the demarcation line from east to west was possible only at certain checkpoints. The city was converted to a polycentric one, and the historical centre became no-man’s land throughout the war years (Garvin, 1996). To mention, the Ta‘if agreement was issued in 1989 to end the Lebanese war, in the form of a spreading of political power and institutional prerogatives, which reproduced the initial conditions of fragmentation by institutionalizing sectarianism, and in some cases, solidifying it. Besides, the Lebanese “laisser-faire” attitude to socio-economic questions was deemed insufficient to equalize the socio-economic characteristics of sects, and an awkward system of redistribution would take its place.

For instance, when the state wanted to reinstate the public transport in Beirut after the war, one of the main elements was to divide the numbers of drivers according to the sectarian groups (Nakkash, 2018).

“Who said that a Christian or a Muslim person wants to be a bus driver? Why dividing us once again?” said Tammam Nakkash.

After 1989, the reconnecting the road network started by executing new road projects that were dormant since the 1960s, building ring roads within Beirut, and connecting Beirut to its surroundings.

What were previously transportation hubs at the periphery of the capital became fully integrated in the urban fabric, absorbed by urban expansion rather than remaining at, and defining the city edges or boundaries, (example Charles Helou station, Dora or Cola transportation nodes). The reconstruction plan for the Beirut Central District (BCD) by Solidère disregarded the rest of the city and circumscribed the centre with highways (Garvin, 1996; Nakkash, 2016).

Urban explosion in some suburbs and densification occurred with the migration of Lebanese towards the capital, without an effective public transport system and with on-going security issues. Add to this the influx of refugees, particularly Syrians in the recent years. To some extent, these and other factors generated formal and informal forms of mobility.

Intermittently after the war and particularly after 2005, the everyday mobility of people was negotiated and often compromised to the benefit of some political figures. Mobility was reinstated, but it

had to cope with the instabilities, as “circumscribed through the installation of barriers, blockades, checkpoints and the rerouting of traffic flow. As elsewhere, the securitization of Beirut’s public space sought to reconfigure and manage the mobility of individuals construed as potentially threatening to safety” (Monroe, 2011: 91) This added to the ‘disorder’ or ‘chaos’ as being ‘mobile’ in a highly securitized context implies that the shortest path or the preferred one is not always followed. The path is guided by events that lead to tactics and decisions, rather than mobility strategies that are clear to all users. Monroe states that “mobility plays a critical role in the production of differentiation and inequality in Beirut” (Monroe, 2011: 92). This is related to the state of spatial justice that differentiates people by mobility, and helps in understanding the embedded order within the apparent chaos of mobility in Beirut.

Monroe refers to Bourdieu to explain this state as “collectively orchestrated without being the product of the orchestrating action of a conductor” (Monroe, 2011: 105). This means that layers of mobility define spatial experiences and spatial rights within the city characterized by different rhythms. Monroe further observes that “being mobile in Beirut is a civic practice, one in which the apparent opposition between order and disorder commingle and different social and territorial boundaries are fashioned” (Monroe, 2011: 107). In Beirut and depending on affiliation, one could get stuck in traffic or walk where the domain is designed and designated for vehicles only, or simply bypass traffic and reach one’s destination. The street networkdoes not necessarily reflect the mobility of the population. This leads to questioning the meaning of being a rider, driver or pedestrian in Beirut.

3.3.2. Producing Accessibility

Injustice

in

Transport

Borrowing trends from the westerners and implement them in Beirut, the state’s strategies favoured the car over the public transportation.

Thus, the traffic of private automobile did not only contribute to the feeling, as “there is no place to walk or breathe” (Monroe, 2010: 31) but also as a key feature of Beirut’s privatised urbanism. To accommodate the flow of the cars, the state was establishing more roads and parking rather than

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green parks while leaving the reinstatement of an efficient bus system at the bottom of the priorities list (Monroe, 2010). These strategies did not shape the urban landscape, but also the quality of everyday life. The car fixation, in the case of Beirut, reflected a macro sociological issue, in the sense acquiring a car “buying and owning” reflects and helps to produce someone economic reality (Matthies, Klöckner, 2015). For instance, driving a luxurious car in Lebanon, regardless if the drivers can afford to or not, is a way to create an image of affluence and make a statement about who we are to others. In reality, such choices are made because of the historical context that created a dependency referred to be as a habit, routine or simply travel mode fixation reality (Matthies, Klöckner, 2015). Anable (2005) describes this phenomenon as car addiction.

On the other hand, the cityscape’s consumption by the car is threatening the civic life.

Basically, the public transportation infrastructure is always accompanied with public spaces which gives the opportunity for different groups of people to interact together; however, the takeover of the tramways, rail and buses by the car has affected the quality of the urban life to leave no place for free parks and open public spaces , knowing that the state disinvested in public transportation. The commons land in this case, as free and open public spaces, playgrounds, sanitary public beaches, designated sport areas, were taken over by the market under the umbrella of the states (Monroe, 2010; 2011).

Few open spaces remained, not green but tiled as the Corniche Manara, a five-Kilometre seaside walk along the traffic road. But parks, in the sense, green spaces that offer trees on a certain distance from traffic where children can play safe are scarce. The continuous growth in high-end real estate, roads and parking has reinforced inequalities between the citizens in the city and neighbours areas (Monroe, 2010), as Beirut is called today in Arabic “Emm Batoun” or the “Concrete Jungle” in English, a “Growing machine”.

• Car fixation Results from an Ill-functional or Functioning State

The consequences of mass automobile used in Beirut were pressing on the economy, environment and culture, where, because of war driven centralisation and land transformation of the urban and suburban landscape to accommodate as much traffic flow and parking (Perry, 2000; Monroe, 2010). It is important to compare the land needs for the car with other modes of transport and urban uses to understand the loss in the urban life.

Referring to pedestrian studies, a pedestrian uses 1.5 square meters standing and 3 square meters walking, a car requires on average 10 square meters, taking into account all the passageways necessary to access a parking space, then 914 square meters will be taken from the road when the car is moving at 48kph (Rptl, 2014). Since the introduction of the car, Lebanon has lost some of its cultivated land and its irrigated land, especially in Beirut suburbs and other coastal cities (Mikhael, 2017). Beirut and many cities in Mediterranean, by adopting the United States paradigm lost the appearance of a traditional combination of agricultural wealth within the urban life, to resemble more to the American’s cityscapes servicing and storing cars (Perry, 2000; Nakkash, 2016c). Hence, pedestrian amenities as sidewalks, urban furniture, parks have become scarce or vanished in order to accommodate parking spaces and wider streets. Moreover, the expansion of the city was not limited to the ground, parking facilities are expanding underground, far from solving the problem, and it exacerbated streets with congestion.

The urban land became a dead space, available neither for cultural uses nor for commercial activities. Beirut is severally taxing itself, by taking out productive lands for commercial or cultural activities in order to permit vehicular movement and parking.

Suburban developers in Lebanon and elsewhere, however, following the American suburban paradigm, for the most part deliberately avoid creating town centres so as not to reproduce the problems of the automobile congested city. The suburban dream in Lebanon is thus above all a life of easy parking and driving. It is a dream satisfying the needs of the family car, not the family itself, nor the cultural needs of the Lebanese community as a whole.

In the absence of suburban public transportation, the

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Figure 5: Collage of photos goes back when the car was introduced to Beirut and the annoucement in L’Orient newspapers that the trams will be replaced by trolley buses. Besides, postcolonial Beirut has been always facing traffic congestion

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Source: Old pictures taken from the Internet and from Monroe, 2017. Edited by Author Location: Martyr Squre, Cola transport Hub

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family car quickly becomes multiplied into a fleet of cars to allow family members mobility, thus increasing demand for imported vehicles. Hence, the car became not only a mode of transport, but also a reflection of social status. For instance, what I encountered during my studies at my previous university was that students with new cars used to park in the front and whose cars were old fashioned used to park in the back, and those who used to come by service or bus used to explain the reasons behind “why I came by bus”.

• The State is Seeking for Solutions and not Management After the country was torn apart by the civil, and its capital divided by several fighting factions, a journey of reconstruction began (Nakkash, 2016b).

One of the first decisions was to reinstate public transportation in the city as an act of “reconstruction the nation” (Nakkash, 2016a: 4). The work had begun with analysing the state of the public transportation, to set sustainable plans to expand, improve and reconstructing networks. Tammam Nakkash, a transport systems expert and founding Managing Partner at TEAM International “I have been always asked for solution for the traffic, but my answer is traffic does not solution, it needs management.

Besides, all the plans done were not implemented” (Nakkash, 2018).

Many attempts to revive the public transportation were done after the war, but everything remained ink on paper, surprisingly the population was not informed about these unimplemented plans.

To illustrate, Abed Al Hafiz Al-Kayssi, the Director of Land and Maritime Transport in the Ministry of Public Works and Transport for the past eighteen years said “the plans are done and ready to be implemented, but you are not allowed to have a look at them”.

Sharing the same spirit of not sharing information, the council member of the City of Beirut, Mathilda Khoury said during the interview in February “you cannot have the plans now, but at the end of the month the municipality will share the project online”.

This is mostly less than adequate information dissipation, lack of transparency and the treatment of the technical reports as the government own secret

belonging. This lack of transparency goes beyond the creation mistrust between the government and its people, to lessen the sharing spirit in the city.

To keep up with all the post-war development in the city, a fast and immediate plan undertaking the most urgent issues was needed. For instance, targeting first the major corridors which hold most traffic, introduce new traffic management schemes aiming to re-establish an efficient, reliable and attractive public transportation system in the city.

The Lebanese Government set out the Greater Beirut Area Transportation Plan (GBATP), carried out by the CDR and the consulting group TEAM International. Therefore, one of the first projects set out by the Lebanese Government was the Greater Beirut Area Transportation Plan (GBATP). This project was carried out by the Council for Development and Reconstruction (CDR), by a consulting group composed of TEAM International, Institut d’Aménagement et d’Urbanisme de la Région d’Îlede-France (IAURIF), and Société française d’études et de réalisations de transports urbains (SOFRETU). The project was divided into three plans: an immediate action plan 3 to 5 years to intended to answer future needs of the city and its people , then intermediate actions 5 to 10 years, followed by long term action plan 20 years. Meanwhile, to re-instate the desired public transport, a Metropolitan Transport Authority (MTA) had to deal plan, organise, maintain and control a new public transport system. However, an institutional reform had to precede the actual technical measures.

After the end of the war, the public transport authority O.C.F.T.C had a very small fleet of very old badly maintained buses. Only 22 buses had survived the war and carried a total of less than 20,000 passengers a day (Nakkash, 2016b). As there was a lack of suitable bus services, private owner operators had started to run their own makeshift services, with no timetable nor fixed routes. At that time, O.C.F.T.C buses had a timetable and fixed routes to follow; however, the state did not follow strategies to stop the private running buses and vans which created a competition among buses. The police was helping the private operators and fining O.C.F.T.C buses, which lead the latter to be just like the private operators buses “Open the door while driving, not stopping on the bus stops, not following a schedule,

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etc.”, Nakkash smiled, “it would have been better to have strategies to reinstate the state before asking to reinstate the public transportation system” (Nakkash, 2018). However, the taxi-service was organized to follow fixed routes and passenger boarding and lighting to occur at present stations. Taxi-service had played and continued to play a big role in providing public transport, but more organized and controlled fashion (Nakkash, 2016b). Yet, informal practices in transport were multiplying in the city.

On the other hand, “in 1999, the state wanted to buy 200 new buses and running them as the solution, but it will not solve the problem and will not make the quality of service better”, said Nakkash. Then he continued, “When one is given the choice to be stuck in traffic in the comfort of his own car, listening to their own music and not being surrounded by strangers they would always choose that over being stuck in traffic in a state of the art, clean, and fancy bus. For any system to succeed it must be reliable, and quick; this cannot be achieved without giving public transport priority at traffic lights and by using dedicated lanes. The over-allocation of street space to private motor vehicles is a blatant injustice that seems normal when you’re used to it, but when looking to equality between all citizens, a bus with 50 passengers should be entitled to 50 times more street space than a car with 1 passenger” (Nakkash, 2016c: 5; Nakkash, 2018). Clearly the socio-economic losses in Lebanon due to the mass use of the automobile are magnified. “As an importer of cars and their accompaniments, Lebanon pays for its car dependency with an unsustainable cash flow abroad” (Perry, 2000: 2). These Losses affected Lebanon’s natural and social capital to be limited and sacrificed to feed the car culture habit.

Re-implementing a sustainable and efficient transport system for Beirut faces many hurdles.

Some obstacles need new laws to come directly from the parliament such as a revised public finance law and the creation of a Transport Fund, while others require institutional reform. Nakkash discusses in his article the “constant gridlocks of the state” (Nakkash, 2016c). i) A weak enforcement has led to serve chaos and uncontrollable mushrooming of the use of fake license plates on all vehicles, specifically the red plates of public transport. Therefore, a serious focus should be placed on the vehicle and licensing.

This is accompanied with an ii) absence of planning strategies in Lebanon mostly at the Metropolitan level because lack of coordination between Urban Planning and Transport Planning (under different jurisdictions). Hence, a metropolitan planning agency is a must to ensure coordination among land-use and transport planning. Such coordination can facilitate to plan public transport for the whole Metropolitan area of Beirut. However, iii) there are functional gaps and overlaps concerned the transport. There is no updated of the legal framework of authorities responsible of transport in Lebanon and the Greater Beirut Area (GBA) is missing from the store. In this case, rights for granting concessions within GBA should be established to have a clear and efficient structure to reinstate public transport. In addition to iv) the unplanned strategies of the state, the land in the city became scarce and expensive, and the expropriation of the rights of way of planned transport routes is difficult to obtain since no actions were taken immediately. v) The city is lacking of suitable landscape to accommodate pedestrian and bicycle lanes along sustainable modes of transport since everything is taken over by parking, cars and real estate developments. Besides, vi) the authority is missing for a regulatory framework Land Transport Authority (LTA) which has financial and administrative autonomy and would be responsible for planning and regulating public transport services. To mention, there is confusion over the roles of public and private bodies, as procurement and contractual tools are underdeveloped and there is no clear legislation for Public Private Partnership. Last but not least, vii) the public finance issue of the Lebanese government has been running without a budget since 2005 which makes very difficult to launch large scale and long term projects as mass transit systems. Last, in any successful public transport projects in any city around the world, “there has to be champion ready to fully back the new plan” (Nakkash, 2016c: 4). Yet, this point was missed from the Lebanese context as to start and launch a revitalisation program for public transport in Beirut (Nakkash, 2016c).

In conclusion, the Lebanese state was always seeking to solve the problem but not managing it. “It can’t be solved by buying 200 buses!” said Nakkash.

“The corruption is rampant and the government should be more aware of where it puts its money” (Nakkash, 2016c: 4). Indeed, thinking about the

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Ottoman/ French Mandate

Beirut “Pearl of the Middle East”

Lebanese Civil War

Reconstruction Period

Insecure State Study for Bus Rapid Transit Summer 2006 war

USSR study for Beirut Metro Train Operation

Modernising Beirut, by introducing the Car

Tram Operation

Tram removal

Assassination 2005 of Rafic Hariri, former Prime Minister

Railway Removal

Annoucing to ReplaceTram by Trolley-Buses

1876

1943

1908

1950

1960 1960 1963 1968

“car is the future of transport”

1989 1970

1975

1980 1992

Urbanisation Create Beirut a Cosmpolitan City because of its Port Modernising Beirut, investing in road infrastructure to facilitate the trade (Silk)

2017

2006 Informal Public Transport

?

Tai’f agreement (End of War)

Reconstruction Period “rebuilt stone, but not social ties” 1995

2018

1998

Following Westerners Paradigm, Public Transportation, BRT

Vanishing of Formal Bus 2000 system

Rebuild the Nation through Public Transportation

Republic of Lebanon (state built onconsociational democracy)

No control for private buses operation Investing in Road Infrastructure as a tool for Nation-Building Following Westerners Paradigm, Automobile

Events Mechanisms Sectarian Mosaic Public Transport condition

Diagram 1: Dynamics of Decision Making by the State in relation to the mobility system in Beirut Source: Author

Public Transport

Diagram 3: Dynamics of Decision Making by the State in relation to the mobility system in Beirut Source: Author, 2018

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Figure 5: Between 1960 and 2018, Martyrs’ Square is still the same, congested with traffic. an insecure city secures its parking Source: Author, February 2018 Location: Martyrs’ Square, Beirut Central District

transport problem in Beirut goes beyond the subject itself, it is multi-faceted and not easy to be solved, especially that the state failed to adopt a wise and long term project for transport policy. Referring to Mohieddine (2018), Nakkash (2016; 2018) and Tawile (2018), these failures are connected to the lack of having a national government institutions and a parliament members who are more interested in discussing public services, sectarian and geopolitical issues rather than how to get benefits and bypassing the laws. Only with a strong political will championed by committed, trustworthy and capable leaders, Beirut’s situation will improve, as providing a sustainable public transport. These failures left a room for the 20% of commuters who do not have car to rely on the informal practices of public transport. For instance, these commuters use the shared “service” (Taxi), Uber, Careem, Carpolo, buses and vans. These services are provided for different riders from all the social classes from different nationalities who are in need to travel across the city (Baaklini, 2018b).

3.3.3. What does Public mean for Beirutis in Privatised City?

“In Beirut, anything can be built because the city has sprung up in every direction… the city lacks of sufficient planning system” said Tammam Nakkash.

• In Beirut, Private Means Public

Despite a careful and comprehensive state-sponsored planning development for Beirut since the mid-twentieth century, the plans were never realised. As a result, Beirut’s physical texture landscape is pieced-together (Monroe, 2016).

In her book, Monroe describes the city as being “haphazard, unplanned and unregulated drawn links between the lack of a comprehensive vision for the city and the political infighting for which Lebanese state institutions are well known” (Monroe, 2016: 26). The only massive development project for the city’s centre was undertaken by the real estate company Solidère. Several planners, architects and urbanists were engaged in the process of the reconstructing Beirut; such example showed

that a Public Private Partnership is more efficient, the private sector is more trustworthy than the state in planning and improving the urban space.

According to Robert Saliba, a Lebanese architect and a Professor at the American University of Beirut described such corporation to approach large scale projects has proven to be more effective in Beirut in comparison with the ineffectiveness of the traditional, governmental approach (Monroe, 2016: 130). In this case, privatisation of the urban planning and development in Beirut is a process seen also in the Arab states, where the state sells-off publically held lands to private sector with little regard for public interest. In the case of the Lebanese’s fractious politics, privatisation is to be a redemptive solution (Monroe, 2010: 2016). The private sector, hence, is perceived safer within perpetual instabilities of the country resulted from sectarian and political tensions taking over the public realm (Monroe, 2016). To illustrate, the Vice President of the Federation of Dahiyeh Janoubiat Municipalities or the southern suburbs of Beirut clarified for me “look privatisation is the solution for this country, take it from the Clientalism perspective, every party serves its community or bring private developer as being free from the polarised politics that undergird municipal governance in Beirut, Rafic Hariri was right when he introduced Solidère, or when City of Zahlé decided to privatised the electricity, besides the city is unplanned.” Moreover, privatisation didn’t tackle only the physical texture in the city, but also drivers and pedestrians experience this lack of planning and standardisation in their everyday practice in mobility. De facto, the setbacks are not regulated, car blocks sidewalks and forces pedestrians to walk in the streets, landmarks are used as directions to navigate the city because of lack of proper standardised names of streets, absence of building number, and inadequate signage. Another example is the service road that runs over the old railway, offers alternative routes parallel to often congested coastal highway. To mention, traffic changes direction during different times of the days, but these changes are based on the surprise effect.

The drivers, can’t plan ahead to take the alternative roads, but instead must cross over to find out which traffic is flowing (Monroe, 2016). Unpredictability leads to uncertainty in being mobile around the city; it is reflected also in the public mass transit.

Everything in Beirut is correlated, when it comes

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to streets with narrow one-way direction, “drivers behind buses become incensed, laying on their horns, waving their hands and leaning out of their car windows to shout for the buses to move” (Monroe, 2016: 26). The buses operate in mixed traffic with other vehicles on the roads, with no fixed bus stops. The lack of fixed stops and the absence of dedicated lines created nuisance in the flow of traffic. To illustrate, an inherent aspect of the buses informal practices is the passengers can get benefit, by boarding and disembarking anywhere they want along the bus route, rather than waiting a formal and marked bus stop.

reflected the hierarchy of power and control while it created a congested city with traffic and unlimited construction projects. In fact, the citizens are forgetting the notion of public space, having trouble to find a place to sit, a space to breathe and room to move. They city’s power, political sectarian conflict played a central role in shaping and organising spatial access and mobility that Beirutis experience urban space (Monroe, 2009; 2016; 2017; Nakkash, 2018).

Etel Adnan portrayed Beirut in her book “Sitt Marie Rose” as “in the city, the centre of all prostitutions, there are a lot of money and a lot of construction that will never be finished. Cements have mixed with the earth, and little by little has smothered most of the trees; If not all” (Adnan 1982, 9). Adnan’s description for Beirut is still apt to these days, when the city is enduring a state of privatisation of construction. The production of an urban physical landscape was affected by the unplanned and informal, in which the vehicles became a dominant aspect in the city. The growing city was materialising the highways and parking areas over preserving the city’s historical social fabric while favouring the high-end real development.

This image created for Beirut was portrayed by the power holders to be beneficial for everyone; however, these informal distributions of this growth lead to inequalities between central Beirut and its neighbourhoods. Moreover, the lack of planning has positioned public transport, housing and free open public spaces at the end of the priorities for both national government and municipal. In this case, the state strategies diminished people’s rights to access the city, did not regulate and control Beirut’s physical landscape, or favour the ‘public’ (Monroe, 2010; 2016).

It is clear that the modes of privatisation have significantly shaped the physical space of the modernised Beirut; through informal and deregulated practices in building, transport and the diminishing of public lands and the dominance of the vehicles. These of modes of privatisation have

Figure 6: Establishment of new type of public spaces, car space, Source: Unknown, May 2018 Location: Antelias highway, Beirut

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• Being Mobile in Beirut within a Secured Territorial Mosaics

Several mechanisms contributed to the territorialisation process in Beirut. One of these mechanisms is the use of visual language elements in public space: the display of flags, posters and banners, the positioning of military tanks at border lines, the marking of main spaces and the periodic convoys of motorcycles carrying flags and shouting slogans Visual language becomes a dialogue between the “we”, and the “they”, all in the context of the city. The way the residents and supporters re-appropriate these elements of demarcation by adding sound, mobility and spatiality change their form and function. The way these elements expand beyond their medium and their flat surface transforms the urban space which is the product of the various interactions between people, territory and symbol, all of which contribute to construct the space’s identity (Monroe, 2009; 2016). Therefore, the passer-by in Beirut has to encounter the sectarian enclaves characterized by a mutually exclusive sense of loyalty and allegiance to a political authority (El Khazen, 2003). In times of political stability, enclaves have blurred boundaries. In times of conflict, citizens were fuelled by an intensified sense of togetherness, can retreat into an “esprit de corps” (Kaabour, 2009: 14) as to live in common spirit of comradeship, devotion and enthusiasm to a cause among the members of the group (El Khazen, 2003; Fawaz et al.,2009; Salamey, 2009). This coalescence reinforced the enclave between where each community claimed the space as their territory and demarcate it in various ways. The sequence of assassinations and assassination attempts from 2005 and so forth, ensued gradually legitimised the proliferation of security systems in order to protect a few politicians and political institutions against a criminalised “public” (Fawaz et al., 2009). Since then, a sharp polarisation of sectarian divisions and their degeneration went into street fights in 2008 also lead to the deployment of police and military personnel in a number of locations identified as “hot spots” where riot-control measures were deemed necessary (Fawaz et al., 2009). Temporary checkpoints and closed roads, hence, appeared in the city’s visual landscape accompanied with “no

parking signage, security cameras, speed bumps, sand bags, tanks, and other aspects of the security deployment apparatus have become familiar elements of the cityscape, which almost every dweller has to navigate daily” (Fawaz et al., 2009: 2). Militarising of urban space seemed increasingly denounced especially after urban terrorist has caught-up in the capital city. As impelling as it is, the recent political disorder can’t be decried as the only reason behind the production of security enforcement practices in the city, these practices rooted back in the history of Lebanon’s civil war, when Beirut was fragmented into delineated territories where each was controlled by a sectarian militia, so called in that time “self-rule” where is each security was considered “semi-autonomous, militarised bodies” (Fawaz et al., 2009).

The reconstruction period of Beirut’s historic core in 1992 by the private real-estate company Solidère enabled the downtown to be transformed

Map 1: Sectarian Mosaic in Beirut based on Municipal boundaries, the pixels are an approximation which represente in the number of people reside in Beirut Source: Author, 2018

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into an entertainment area to be the emblem of the neo-liberal urban and economic strategies that largely determined the city’s development, yielding a politics of marginalisation based on class divisions (Fawaz, 2009: Monroe, 2009). This trend eventually continued to define the development of the capital city to be now acquired with a well-defined landscape within privately secured zones in which the city’s upper-income dwellers have established their territories.

The city’s pattern has new typology of buildings as shopping centres, restaurants, and high-end residential towers, sea resorts, in addition to new infrastructure system as motorways, airport and ports that cater the needs of the city. Another example about territorial divisions is reflected in Tarik el-Jdideh as an example. After the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in February 2005, the Sunni community felt threatened and a heightened sense of sectarian belonging flared among the city’s residents. The process of territoriality was progressively materialised by demarcating the area’s boundaries against the “others”, the Shiite who lives in al-Dahia. Thus, further sectarian identities were delineated inside the neighbourhood. This resulted with chaos in driving within the city, where the drivers have to switch and adapt to the territories are driving in (Monreo, 2009; Fawaz, 2009).

Figure 7: Collage of photos for the Civil war which divided Beiurt between East and West Source: Author, 2018

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Map 2: a close up for the Sectarian Mosaic in Beirut based on Municipal boundaries, the pixels are an approximation which represente in the number of people reside in Beirut (between East and West Beirut Source: Author, 2018

Map 3: a close up for the Sectarian Mosaic in Beirut based on Municipal boundaries, the pixels are an approximation which represente in the number of people reside in Beirut (between East and West) Source: Author, 2018

Map 4: a close up for the Sectarian Mosaic in Beirut based on Municipal boundaries, the pixels are an approximation which represente in the number of people reside in Beirut (in West Beirut) Source: Author, 2018

3.4.

Creating Transport Crisis in Beirut

“What If” everything had gone according to the plans of the city of Beirut of 1995? Beirut would have been with metro lines, a regional railway service, three bus lines “running on dedicated bus lanes” and thirteen lines running in mixed traffic, a taxi-service, as well as sidewalks, bicycle lanes as modes working together in a full multi-modal sustainable system in order to meet Beirutis’ needs to travel in the city (Naccach, 2016b). However, “what” and “if” are two words that are as non-threatening as words can be, but put together have the power to rethink the strategies followed by the Lebanese state.

What if the Lebanese state followed long-term strategies in all aspects, would the country be in instability, chaos and corruption?

Almost twenty-four years after the state launched the 1998 plan for public transport; the city still lacks an efficient sustainable transport system. Looking at the situation today, one can claim the city is not worse off than it was in 1994. The city’s population has grown and the demarcation line of the past has fully disappeared, that what it was said, but the public transport is still underprovided. Unfortunately, all of the planned public transport is nothing but ink on paper up to this day (Nakad, 2018).

Sidewalks are still, but to a lesser extent, used by parked vehicles, and double parking is still prevalent (Nakkash, 2016; Monroe, 2016). Even, the New Traffic Law passed in 2015 is not being enforced. The weak law enforcement whether for red light running, seat belts, using the mobile phone while driving, drunk driving, parking illegally, going the wrong way and any other serious violation are still unabated (Nakkash, 2016a). There are short periods of extreme Figure 8: Collage of photos for the traffic congestion in Beirut and Omni-present bus system, operating to stitch the divided city Source: Author, 2018

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enforcement of some laws, then the situation goes back to total uncontrolled chaos.

When talking with the citizens about the roots of traffic problems, they often replied with complaints I knew about “there are too many cars, each family has at least three cars” or “there is no good public transportation, the buses have low frequencies, slow and variable and unreliable travel times, and poor geographic coverage” or “the roads are too narrow and there is no place for road expansion”. By referring to my interviews many representatives of the State, they agreed that the lack of control of any of the public transport vehicles by the government and restricting the total licensed vehicles to a fixed number has led to forging red license plates (an estimated 16,000 vehicles). Besides, the informal practices lead to use the same plate number on two or more vehicles, especially in the remote rural areas. Similarly, there is an over-supply and low demand for the shared-taxi (service) vehicles on some major profitable routes while it is completely missing in other areas of the city. Moreover, there is very brutal competition among drivers on the same lines; sometimes these duels escalate into violence (Mehdi, 2010). Constant and uncontrolled stopping by vehicles to pick up and drop passengers causes traffic congestion and affects the free flow of the vehicles in the city. In addition, the use of old and inefficient vehicles that are not maintained properly negatively effects the environment of the city (Mehdi, 2010). All of the above actions are ultimately resulting in a high level of pollution, congested streets and unregulated public transport.

Hence, traffic congestion has developed into a transportation crisis that is worsening due to bad roads, an increasing number of cars and a quasi-absent public transportation system. Besides, the excessive reliance on private cars and a very low occupancy rate of vehicles, estimated at 1.2 people per vehicle are key factors for congestion (Tawile, 2018). People in Lebanon spend 720 hours (CDR, 2018) on average out of 4,380 day hours on the roads annually; more than 16% of the individual’s supposed “productive time”, according to the Urban

Transport Development Project, a World Bank affiliated organization. Moreover: “The traffic in Lebanon is largely caused by the big volume of cars exceeding the capacity of the road network, we only have private cars as a main mode of transportation, which means the number of cars will continue to rise,” said Elie Helou, traffic expert with the government’s Council for Development and Reconstruction (CDR, 2107).

Ziad Nasser, the head of O.C.F.T.C , “We need to revive public transport which is the basics to live together and to give again the people rights to access public spaces”.

inspired from worldwide new innovative transport project; BRT is brought to the Lebanese context as the “future of transport and the ultimate solution for the transport crisis”.

3.5. The State’s Vision for the Transport to Create Social Equity and Sustainable Urban Development

The objective of the BRT is to reduce the traffic and improve transport connectivity and mobility on the coastal corridor located to the North of Beirut.

The objectives of project will be achieved through constructing a new BRT system between Beirut and Tabarja highway, and within the city of Beirut. Also, the BRT system will be accompanied with feeder buses. Appropriate institutional arrangements for the management, operation and maintenance of the new mass transit system should be established (CDR, 2018). CDR has published the first report in 2017, followed by a second edition in February 2018. The report includes various details about the basics of the proposed project, as technical details, socio-economic and environmental dimensions. In addition, the World Bank approved to fund the BRT project, after the outcome of the Feasibility Study, the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment and the Resettlement Action Plan. After the project is approved, the CDR is responsible for its construction while the operation has to be under the jurisdiction of the Railways and Public Transport Authority (RPTA). Implementation of a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) System has been identified as one of the potential investments to improve mobility and traffic circulation along the three (3) main entrances to Beirut Northern, Southern and Eastern entrances.

In parallel, the CDR commissioned ELARD to prepare the ESIA and RAP components of the Project. The ESIA aims at identifying and assessing possible environmental and social impacts resulting from the Project and proposing measures to minimize the significance of negative impacts and maximize the benefits of positive ones. This approach, developing the feasibility and ESIA studies, will shed the light on environmental and social components to be considered during the feasibility study and will allow for a better integration of environmental and social components in the Project detailed design phase (CDR, 2018).

3.5.1. Change the Balance of Beirut Streets An estimated 500,000-600,000 vehicles enter and exit Beirut daily, adding to the large number of cars in the city (Mohieddine, 2018), so overall around 1000,000 cars are in Beirut every day. Besides, “another main reason for traffic is chaos on the road, as “the systematic violations of the road laws and lack of proper enforcement make traffic much worse,” Helou added. If “the driving law was applicable, at least 30% of the traffic congestion would be reduced”, said Jean Tawile, the president of the Economic and Social Council at Kataeb Party . In parallel, traffic congestion in Lebanon is causing economic loss of 8-10% of gross domestic product (GDP), an estimated $3 billion, Ziad Nakat, senior transport specialist with the World Bank, pointed out . The biggest component of the cost of traffic is time wasted on the road. There is also the effect on health from pollution, excess fuel consumption, impact on economic productivity, higher cost of rent as people tend to live closer to their jobs and higher vehicle operating costs,” Nakat added. According to these experts, the solution is to introduce reliable public transport as the only answer to Lebanon’s traffic problem; there is no city in the world that tackles congestion by only building roads and bridges like Lebanon (Nakkash, 2016).

Hildago and Muñoz (2016) discuss that traditional Public Transport Planning Textbooks and Guidelines indicate a hierarchy of transport modes according to capacity and speed (Hidalgo, Munoz; 2016).

Buses are usually recommended for low-capacity applications; while rail, in the form of light rail transit, metro, and regional rails are generally recommended for medium and high capacity applications. In this section, I will be discussing the institutional framework of the BRT project in relation to mobility injustice in Beirut, as the project is being imposed by the State in attempts to revive the public transportation in Beirut.

For such city, securing Beirut has created a visual and physical “order” claimed by the enclaves architecture of defense created a chaotic urban environment in which ordinary residents mobility was characterized by negotiation, regulation, and risk. Besides, the Lebanese have forget that “we do have the same nationality, we speak the same language, we are facing the main challenges” said

Since, Infrastructure and service development in Lebanon is beginning to attract attention from the local authorities, as urbanisation, motorisation and GDP grow (Nasser, 2018). The Lebanese Government is beginning to recognise the need for organized transit, to replace the low-quality informal public transport services that are currently running on the Lebanese routes. Once again, the state was

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Deng and Nelson (2011) defines the BRT as “a new modern breed of urban passenger transportation with consistently growing global importance due to evidence of an ability to implement mass transportation capacity quickly and at a low-tomoderate cost” (Deng and Nelson, 2011: 71). It is characterised by modern vehicles, dedicated busway and applications of intelligent transportation systems (ITS) technologies, is increasingly considered as a cost‐effective approach of providing a high‐ quality (Deng and Nelson, 2011: 71). Many cities across the world have recently launched ambitious programmes of BRT system implementation with varying success (Deng and Nelson, 2011: 71).

As pointed out herein, if the BRT project is welldesigned and implemented and supported by local policymakers, it could bear high-capacity public mode and could capture also the motorists.

55

Referring to the CDTR (2018), the next 30 years, both the vehicle fleet and the average number of daily motorised trips per person are expected to increase by almost 60%. The expected demographic growths will be doubled which will lead to increase the total number of motorised trips.

The main challenge for Beirut is to organise the transportation system in order to accommodate the existing demand for road trips and account for the envisaged urbanization and demographic pressures in the northern suburbs of the Greater Beirut Area. To reduce congestion levels, authorities are investing in public transport, as the BRT buses will be operating for a significant part of their journey within a fully dedicated right of way (bus-way) to avoid traffic congestion. In addition, a BRT System usually has the following elements:

technical drawings, land expropriation problems will appear, but we can solve”. Then, Ali Slim added “before negotiating the BRT, the state has to buy and negotiate lands (land expropriation), this needs a dedicated budget; therefore, the project is quite hard to be implemented”. In fact, “the results of BRT system implementation in some other countries are successful, but BRT in the Lebanese context is impossible, the city is too complex” Said Ali Mohieddine. Hence, “it is much easier for the state to adapt the proposal proposed by the union of syndicate to the ministry in 2011. This project can create inclusion; it is based on the existing system with certain upgrades” Mohieddine added. Then, what is the future of the transport in Beirut?

- Alignment in the centre of the road (to avoid typical curb-side delays);

Role of Favouring the BRT by the Lebanese State Bodies: Who loses? Who Gains and

by What Mechanisms of Power?

Nakkash during the interview made it clear that “Congestion is not the problem; it is the symptom of the problem” and “the problem is beyond the traffic and one of its symptoms is congestion”. “There is no cure for the congestion”. This augmenting congestion has a lot to do with the increase of cars in transit and the country instabilities. Referring to a research done at the BLOMINVEST Bank, by Mirna Chami, a Senior Economist, and Marwan Mikhael, the Head of Research discuss that the “total number of registered new vehicles has been increasing between 2007 and 2016, at an average yearly rate of 13%” (Chami and Mikhael, 2017: 1).

According to the World Bank report in 2017, the constant increase in car ownership is the high cost of housing which lead people to reside away from Beirut; however, most jobs are concentrated in the centre. Nakkash explained that mobility is about moving from one point to another because this is the way of life and within the absence of suitable public transportation; people will always rely on the car (Nakkash, 2018). Moreover, a study was done by the World Bank in 2016 about the inflow of Syrian refugees, has created an increase in traffic jam around 15 to 25%. In addition to the mentioned factors affecting the traffic, the dismissal of traffic laws, the poor maintenance of the roads and the lack of common transport system, all contribute to congestion crisis (Saade, 2017).

However, “there is no technical drawing for the BRT yet” Said Ziad Nasser, “once CDR will start with the

“The dysfunctional transport system is the real problem” said Nakkash ended the interview.

- Stations with off-board fare collection (to reduce boarding and alighting delay related to paying the driver); - Station platforms level with the bus floor and multiple bus doors for entry (to reduce boarding and alighting delay caused by steps and queuing); and - Bus priority at intersections (to avoid intersection signal delay).

Finally, one important debate in the planning community is whether BRT influences urban development. Similar to rail systems, the influence of BRT on urban development is not obvious (Suzuki et al, 2013). Special conditions and policies need to be in place to advance transit oriented development.

•

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Additionally, amongst many of the traffic jams consequences, the increase in CO2 emissions, congestion does have a monetary cost.

BLOMINVEST bank’s study showed that “the cost of road congestion is estimated at $2 billion/ year” (Chami and Mikhael, 2017). According to Nakkash, “the time spent on the road is a waste of time and not productive”. “If it is about goods, it is then inventory cost. If the goods are not being able to move, as fast as needed to bring them from one place to another, the cost will increase” (Saade, 2017). Unlike other businesses in Lebanon, the congestion is a loss and waste situation. Chami explained that the $2 billion losses are not beneficial to any party of the Lebanese economy. On the other hand, Nakkhash explained that the government does rely on gasoline taxes. Hence, “the presence of individual cars does create public revenue” (Saade, 2017; Nakkash, 2018). Congestions will be reduced through an adequate public transportation system, inclusive and beneficial for all the Lebanese.

Nakkash ended the interview “forget about solving the traffic problem. The traffic should be managed, rather than solved”.

Moreover, “Lebanon is primarily in need of a new reliable public transportation system, with a full strategy requires efforts from governmental authorities, municipalities, governors, funders and of course security forces,” a source at the Internal Security Forces in Lebanon. MP Mohammed Kabbani, the Head of the Public Works, Transportation, Water and Energy Parliamentary Committee, noted in his interview with Annahar, “the proper application of new traffic laws can significantly help reduce the traffic problem, yet improving public transportation is an equally important aspect of this issue” (Ghoussaini, 2017). Kabbani highlighted that “80% of the inhabitants use private cars, yet only 18% use public transportation as the shared-taxi cabs ‘service’, and less than 2% are pedestrians and rely on the bus informal system; meanwhile, in other countries, these percentages are reversed”. He noted that to improve public transportation is today at the top of the committee’s main concerns, and it is considered the adoption of a new system known as Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) (Ghoussaini, 2017).

Moreover, “Transport issue became a priority at the government, all the Lebanese without exceptions are affected by the traffic congestion” said Ziad

Nasser, “the BRT is the ultimate solution because in less than two years, we will be facing gridlocks”.

However, Al-Kayssi said “the BRT is a temporary project, it will be only for eight years, indeed five years construction and it will serve for eight years, as a prototype, if it worked, thus then the problem is solved.

If the BRT is the ultimate solution to the congestion problem, then what will happen with the current public transport transit services? “the BRT is in need for the current bus network, as feeder buses for the BRT since the government can’t afford to buy buses that serve all the Lebanese cities and villages when the informal bus system does” Said Mathilda Koury, a council member at Beirut Municipality and Ziad Nasser. However, if one refers to the CDR “Environmental and Impact Social Impact Assessment for the Bus Rapid Transit System between Tabarja and Beirut and Feeders Buses Services”, 2017, it is mentioned that the BRT has a poor integration with the current public transport systems while other alternatives are to be introduced in the future, or the surrounding environment. The poor integration of the infrastructure with the local transit needs and cityscape might lead to poor uptake of the new BRT services, especially if the design of stations, bridges and surrounding infrastructure are not user-friendly for all people, appealing or safe for vulnerable groups such as women, youth, special needs persons and the elderly. Moreover, a noninclusion or weak integration of the current public transport service providers in the BRT. Such statements were validated by Ali Mohieddine, when he “no one talked with us about the BRT”.

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Stakeholders Mapping

Public Works, Transportation, Water & Energy Parliementary Committee

Beirut Land Transport (Public Transportation)

Directorate General for Land & Maritime Transport

Ministry of Social Affairs Ministry of Environment

Ministry of Public Works and Transport

Ministry of Interior and Municipalities

Internal Security Forces Traffic Managment Centre

Ministry of Finance, Experts

TEAM International

Railway and Public Transport Authority

Engineers

Khatib and Alami

Council for Development and Reconstruction

Order of Engineers and Architects - Beirut

Architects, Urban Planners and Designers

O.C.F.T.C. Lebanese Physical Handicapped Union- Association of Passenger Rights

NGO

Union of Syndicates of Drivers of Public License Vehicles in Lebanon

Train/Train

Legend:

Nahnoo

Internal Connection Funds

Transportation Consultant, Syndicate of Drivers in Northern Metn

Beirut Municipality (Council Member)

Municipalities in El-Metn/ Beirut Suburbs

- Bus Owners

Connection

External Connection

UNDP

World Bank

- Drivers

Activists Local Initiatives Bus Map Project

58

Diagram4 : Stakeholders mapping who are involved in transport Source: Author, 2018

59

3.5. Conclusion To sum up, the analysis above shows how mobility in Beirut, congestion, and transport-related exclusionary related to various aspects of Lebanese social and political life, past and present. These include: social class, the Lebanese civil war, the ineffectiveness of the state, on-going instability, the lack of a consolidated approach to planning, knowing that at present different authorities have different stakes and decision making powers related to planning transportation and ideas about what constitutes “Lebaneseness”.

Mobility is a reflection of everyday urban life, which connects to residence, work, leisure and wellbeing which helps in establishing spatial connectivity within the city and its different parts. In other words, mobility helps to create social connections, affinities and knowledge. The importance of moving is equally lies in understanding the engagement of inhabitants with their urban contexts, and the experiences generated in their everyday urban live.

For Beirut’s case, mobility is a key factor in allowing social integration, which is particularly important in a conflict ridden context. In unstable contexts, mobility can’t be taken for granted, as it is no longer an everyday practice equally available to all, it varies spatially within the city. In Beirut’s case, mobility varies not only by socio-economic classes but also along political and sectarian differences. Note that in Beirut residential areas are usually mixed from a socio-economic perspective, yet rather homogeneous from a sectarian perspective.

In her article, Monroe specifically refers to people’s perceptions of the existing public transport, whereby one group of the population considers the buses for foreign, particularly Syrian workers, while other Lebanese consider people with such perceptions as snobbish, or simply it does not exist, as most of the citizens say “we don’t have public transport”.

Indeed, through the tracing the story of production of mobility injustice in Beirut, urban mobility was vital to reinstating a return to everyday urban life, yet it had to cope with the country and capital’s perpetual instabilities, characterised as ‘chaotic’.

Part of the coping mechanism was the emergence of travel routes within the city, which are shared by pedestrians, shared taxi cabs or ‘service’, vans and buses. However, following the meanings and

sectarian mosaic

weak law traffic enforcement chaos in driving

territorial security

car-fixation no formal action from the state poor service of public transport

ethnics: religion, gender, age TRANSPORT TRANSPORT DISADVANTAGES BEHAVIOUR

no opportunities to choose mode of transport

LAND USE PLANNING

In conclusion, the work and the efforts of the government and CDR in improving the public transport are appreciated, according to Kamel Ibrahim, a road safety expert. However, Beirut needs immediate action plan and it is much better to find practical solutions that can be promptly applied (Ghoussaini, 2017). Carpooling could be a solution, as people can share the ride when they are heading to the same destination; it is more environmental friendly as it reduces CO2 emissions, sustainable way to travel and it encourage people to interact together. Hence, traffic congestion will be reduced and the parking spaces could be converted to green open spaces. Ibrahim noted to Annahar “By having more people using one vehicle; it thereby reduces each person’s travel costs such as fuel costs and the stress of driving” (Ghoussaini, 2017). One of the most notable initiatives regarding this matter is “Carpolo”, an application was created by three Lebanese entrepreneurs to make carpooling appealing to Lebanese public transport.

“The purpose of the application is to encourage the inhabitants to share rides to and from their home, work or university, safely and easily” stated the co-founder of Carpolo to Annahar, therefore, “the number of cars moving will be reduced to and from the city”. Sharing the same spirit, Ibrahim encourages organisations and universities to adopt shuttle services, such as a private bus that travels of minimum or free charge for the employees or students.

SOCIAL NORMS AND PRACTICES

secured mosaic threatened the civic life of the Beirutis; hence, social exclusion was created in the city and mobility is one dimension. In fact, mobility in Beirut is explored at the level of riders within a context where consociational democracy and the urban context are closely entangled.

social class no public interactions

not participating in the decision making privatisation

Unfairness

INACCESSIBILITY

TRANSPORT INJUSTICE (EXLCUSION)

ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL STRUCTURE

MEASURES adequate public transport

BUS RAPID TRANSIT ?

CAR SHARING SYSTEM ?

Diagram 5: Mechanisms of Producing Transport Injustice in Beirut

In Beirut, the privatisation process, the development of real-estate projects and the heavy

SOCIAL DISADVANTAGES

WORK ON THE EXISITING INFORMAL BUS SYSTEM ?

Source: Author, 2018

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GOVERNANCE AND DECISION FRAMEWORKS

• Other Practical Solutions

61

matters of territoriality and privatisation, I focus on security and its material and social impacts in the public spaces of Beirut. it created social exclusion not only on the transport level, but on all aspects of everyday practices. In this context, the dynamics of security created modes of immobility, rather than mobility which are most noticeable. Since the residents negotiate by vehicular, corporeal and interactive means to get around the city. In this way, Beirut exists in tension between order and disorder. It is a journey that Beirut’s residents offer, a provocation to consider how orderly meaning can be located in and among the chaos and how the order assembled by security can indeed make life chaotic. In Flesh and Stone (1994), Sennett writes spatial forms and practices, which limit contact between bodies and citizens, which are both sought out and achieved through mechanisms of planning as well as everyday practices of movement.

This approach opened up the question of spatial justice produced within urban context while considering the dynamic relation between the space and time in the city; and the implications on social practices due to exclusion. Moreover, being mobile in this fragmented city means exploring a reality of coping and adapting within a context of instability marked by securitisation, and the lack of an organized transport system; could be read through the current differentiated mobility experiences and practices in the city with its population and urban dynamics.

These dynamics relate to internal relocation of the population seeking job opportunities, the flow of refugees coming into the city, and real estate development that affects and is impacted by transportation infrastructure.

I observed in Beirut, a very different kind of civic body. The prevailing paradox of Lebanese politics and society is eminent in Beirut’s public culture: practices of moving through and being stopped in urban space are at one and the same time intimate and estranging, collective and divisive. The civic body is entangled in geographies of contact and corporeality.

Last, as stated before, priority lanes for public transport are a must. The traffic problem and congestion are not going anywhere, and the goal of the city should not be to solve the traffic problem but to provide mobility and accessibility to people of all

ages and socio-economic backgrounds. It is the duty of the city to provide residents with affordable, safe and efficient transport options. However, the car fixation became a habit for the Lebanese, an attachment rather than mode of transport. In other countries, planners, government officials and residents are sharing concerns about the production of a “healthy” city in the face of car-fixation. Therefore, strategies for the cities are aiming to become denser and less car-dependent, as reducing the travel distance.

Heavy investment in car sharing schemes, bike infrastructure, and public transport can prepare the inhabitants for a future that would not include cars.

Therefore, Beirut must start reversing car ownership trends and move to a future that is sustainable and fair to all its citizens. This vision, once set, should be used to aim all our investments in the right direction.

The government with an unsuccessful history in managing the country’s transport, it is following once again transport trends from the westerners, the BRT as the ultimate that do not fully address the mechanisms of exclusion, unplanned city, and therefore, other solutions and policies are necessary.

Notes:

In the next chapters, I will address the impacts of conflicts as wars on mobility caused marginalisation of some people and their adaptation with creative strategies to ensure maintaining their mobility within the city. Mobility, hence, is analysed through civic actions in order to unpack what happens at the level of the inner system as operators, drivers and riders.

Note, Mobility differs for those who do not use public transport and have insular spatial practices, as the spatial segregation is rather a messy dynamic process encompassing numerous and various practices Often private automobiles as well as informal mobility fill in gaps within urban contexts to meet the needs of some segments of the society.

7.

The state created a third enclosure, a new mode of privatisation, yet public spaces within a box called mall

Dora is a transport hub in Northeast of Beirut 2.

Jounieh is a coastal city around 16 km (10 mi) north of Beirut, Lebanon and is part of Greater Beirut.

3.

“Subhiyah” is an early morning visit where people have coffee and share the news about their life.

4.

Horsh Beirut the only public park, closed and inaccessible since the Lebanese civil war 5.

Tank of Gas= 20 litres of Gas = 28000 LBP = EUR 14, and so the state is making around 60% revenue.

6.

Lebanese Independence Day is celebrated on November 22, 1943 in commemoration of the end of the French Mandate over Lebanon after 23 years of Mandate rule

guarded secret. Any disclosure of official figures might threaten the tenuous distribution of political power, which explains why the last official population census dates back to 1932 (Barakat, 1973; Salam, 1998; El Khazen, 2003) 12.

Better known in English as the Phalange is a Christian Democratic political party in Lebanon.

Despite being officially secular, it is supported mainly

by Maronite Catholics. The party played a major role in the Lebanese Civil War (1975–90). In decline in the late 1980s and 1990s, the party slowly re-emerged in the early 2000s. It is now part of the March 14 Alliance.

13. https://en.annahar.com/article/553817lebanon-seeks-solutions-to-ease-traffic-woes 14.

For more details: http://www.cdr.gov.lb/ study/BRT/FINALESIAREPORTver1P1.pdf 15.

15. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/pressrelease/2018/03/15/world-bank-supports-lebanonspublic-transport-to-improve-mobility-spur-growth

8. https://www.pps.org/article/balancingstreet-space-for-pedestrians-and-vehicles 9.

The full study is published by Nabil Nakkash, 2016 “Assessing the Failure of Beirut City in Implementing a Sustainable Transport System” https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/assessing-failurebeirut-city-implementing-transport-system-nakkash/ 10.

Zahlé is the capital and the largest city of Beqaa Governorate, Lebanon 11.

There are currently eighteen legally recognized confessions in Lebanon. Even though the official political distribution of power caters for all the eighteen recognized sects, the two main lines of division are 1) between the Christians and the Muslims and 2) between the main six sects: on the Christian side, the Maronite, the Greek Orthodox and the Greek Catholic communities, and on the Muslim side, the Sunnite, Shiite and Druze communities. The demographic weight of each community is a closely

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References: - Church, A., Frost, M. and Sullivan, K. (2000) “Transport and Social Exclusion in London”. Transport Policy 7, 195-205.

- Edwards, P.N. (2003) “Infrastructure and Modernity: Force, Time and Social Oorganization in the History of Ssocio-Technological Systems” in: T.J. Misa, Ph. Brey & A. Feenberg (eds.) ‘Modernity and Technology’ (pp. 185-225). Cambridge: MIT Press.

- El Khazen, F. (2003) “Political Parties in Postwar Lebanon: Parties in Search for Partisans” The Middle East Journal Vol 57, no. 4 (Summer 2003) p.

605-624 - Habermas, J. (1992) “The structural transformation of the public sphere: an inquiry into a category of bourgeois society”. Cambridge: MIT Press.

- Halim Barakat (1973) “Social and Political Integration in Lebanon: A Case of Social Mosaic” The Middle East Journal 27, no. 3 (Summer 1973): 301.

- Litman, T. (2002) “Evaluating Transportation Equity”. World Transport Policy & Practice, Vol. 8, pp.

50- 65.

-

Monroe, K. (2010) “The Insecure City”

- Monroe, K. (2011) “Being mobile in Beirut” City and Society 23(1): pp. 91-111.

- Monroe, K. (2017) “Circulation, modernity, and urban space in 1960s Beirut” History and Anthropology 28(2): pp. 188-201 - Salamey, I. (2009) “Failing Consociationalism in Lebanon and Integrative Options” International Journal of Peace Studies, 14(2):83-105 - Salamey, I., and Tabbar, P. (2008) “Consociational democracy and urban sustainability: transforming the confessional divides in Beirut” Ethnopolitics 7(2-3): pp. 239-263.

- Salam, A. (1998) “The Role of Government in Shaping the Built Environment” in: Rowe, P. and

Sarkis, H. (eds) (1998) ‘Projecting Beirut: Episodes in the Construction and Reconstruction of a Modern City’. Munich, London, New York: Prestel 122-133.

- Sheller, M. and Urry, J. (2000) “The City and the Car”. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 24(4), pp. 737-757

(2010). Accessibility appraisal of integrated landuse/ transport policy strategies: more than just adding up travel time savings. Transportation Research Part D, Vol. 15, pp. 382-393.

- Sheller, M., Urry, J. (2006) “The New Mobility Paradigm”. Lancaster University. Volume: 38 issue: 2, page(s): 207-226 - Roy, A. (2009) “Civic Governmentality: The Politics of in Beirut and Mumbai” An-tipode 41(1): pp. 159-179.

- Thomopoulos, N., Grant-Muller, S. and Tight, M.R. (2009) “Incorporating Equity Considerations in Transport Infrastructure Evaluation: Current Practice and a Proposed Methodology”. Evaluation and Program Planning, Vol. 32 (4), pp. 351-359.

Geurs, K.T. and Ritsema van Eck, J.R. (2001).

Accessibility measures: review and applications.

Evaluation of accessibility impacts of land-use transportation scenarios, and related social and economic impact. Bilthoven: Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu.

Geurs, K.T. Van Wee, B. (2004). Accessibility evaluation of land-use and transport strategies: review and research directions. Journal of Transport Geography, Vol. 12, pp. 127-140.

Geurs, K., Haaijer, R. and Van Wee, B. (2006). Option Value of Public Transport: Methodology for Measurement and Case Study for Regional Rail Links in the Netherlands, Transport Reviews, Vol. 26 (5), pp. 613-643.

Geurs, K., Zondag, B., De Jong, G. and Bok, M. de

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Chapter 4

Weaving the Fragmented City through Informal, (In)Visible and Sustainable Practices

According to Tammam Nakkash, the definition of a regulated public transportation does not refer to the questions of “who owns or runs the system?�, whether by public or private sector. It is a public, collective, shared transport which moves in the city following dedicated routes, stops and timeline where different users can benefit from the system (Nakkash, 2016c). However, what exists on the Lebanese roads is a hybrid system of informal and formal practices that interacts together (Nakkash, 2018).

Figure 9: Cola Intersection Source: Author, February 2018 Location: Cola, Beirut

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4.1. Introduction: Informal Transit System Functions beyond a Weak State

The state in western contexts, acts as primary representative of the public, which made it “synonymous with the public or the people” (Purcell, 201 : 4). The welfare state, then, is born to actively manage capitalism “with an eye towards stability and material redistribution for social justice” (Purcell, 2013: 4), devoted to the public sphere by the general provision of public goods and services. If one associates the state to the formal realm where policies, strategies and planning can take place and the citizens to the informal one where daily urban life and urban practices take place, one can hypothesise that the informal practices advanced by the people fill gaps of service provision (Moussawi, 2016). Because the welfare state nowadays is getting weaker; thus, it is leading to different outcomes, as an “interesting turf to explore”(Moussawi, 2016: 4). In the context of Beirut, one can speak of a different urban political and economic reality: an elitist government [1], ignoring the public interest, and major gaps encountered at the level of public service provision leads to the insurgence of informal practices falling under the category of Clientalism [2] (Fawaz, 2009; Moussawi, 2016; Monroe, 2010). Accordingly, the informal practices in Beirut, found in each corner of the city, could be subtly holding the manifestation of unmet social needs within them (Fawaz, 2009).

The notion of informality meets on many levels when questions of mobilisation and resistance are tackled. The idea of engaging in activities can challenge the policies enforced by the state (and the lack thereof) is very popular among researchers and many seek to describe agency, power and goals behind these practices (Bayat, 1997; Roy, 2005). To engage in urban informal activities is in itself a form of demand and realization of claiming and exercising what Henri Lefebvre called “the Right to the City” (1995), as informality results in restructuring modes of everyday urban life. By providing their livelihood, people are having power, agency and control over the practices of their everyday life. Informality can subsequently be argued as the first step to take power and establish a “detached apparatus of decision-making is to form a system away from the ruling technocratic one” (Moussawi, 2016: 5); thus, it will be challenging the existing hierarchies

and dictated modern planning pre-occupied with functionality and obsessed with regularized visions (Moussawi, 2016).

Informality can therefore be likened to a system that goes hand in hand with Lefebvre’s project, as well as initiatives to meet the unmet needs. The “street politics” (Bayat, 1997: 55 ) created by informal practices, calls for a nearer look and a “meticulous analysis” (Moussawi, 2016: 5), so it can define what people are doing to meet their needs for everyday life, to cherish and nurture creativity and innovation as vital and necessary ingredients for emancipatory practices (Moulaert et al., 2010). In this chapter, I want to discuss the significance of these activities, precisely their seemingly mundane, ordinary and daily nature. What values can one attach to such exercises, how are such practices explained in the politics of everyday lives?

4.2.

Informality a Space of Power

The informal practices trigger James Scott’s “Everyday forms of Peasant Resistance”. Colburn, Scott and other authors have emphasised that the poor people can resist the oppressors by adopting informal actions, as a reaction for being marginalised, false compliance, dissimulated and so forth, to answer their unanswered needs. Hence, the informal practices are said to act mainly individually and separately, but given repressive political conditions. The politics of these subordinate groups falls into the category of “everyday forms of resistance” (Scott, 1989: 33) which contribute to recover the dispossessed from “passivity, fatalism and hopelessness” (Bayat, 1997: 56) essentialist features of the culture of poverty with its emphasis on identifying the marginalization to become a culture (Bayat, 1997). In his book, Scott transcends the “survival strategies” model in which the poor’s activities are restricted to the basic survival within their daily life, often at the cost of others or themselves. As Escobar suggests that the language of survival strategies contributes sometimes to create an image for the poor as victims (Bayat, 1997).

Moreover, Asef Bayat in his work argues that the struggle of the Middle East informal practices is not “political of protest, is rather political of redress”

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(Bayat, 1997: 59). As such, the purpose of informality in this context has two purposes: “the redistribution of social goods and opportunities, and attainment of cultural and political autonomy [3]” (AlSayyad, 2004: 14). However, the main concerns of many scholars consider that the poor are a “political threat to the existing order since the dynamics of the poor is a destabilising force or ignoring their micro-existence of the everyday politics” (Bayat, 1997:56). Many of these authors still view the politics of the poor in terms of a revolutionary or passive dichotomy. This tends to involve them in a collective, open and highly audible movement. Yet, Scott argues that these informal practices should be considered political since they do constitute a form of a “collective action, and that any account which ignores them is often ignoring the most vital means by which lower class manifest their political interests” (Scott, 1989: 33).

In addition, such practices can seek concessions from the state, they are individuals and quiet struggles, predominantly by direct action, also seek steady and significant changes in their own lives; thus, going beyond “marginally affect(ing) the various forms of exploitations which peasants confront” (Bayat, 1997: 56-57). However, Scott’s work is also important from a different angle. The latter subscription to rational choice theory overlooks the complexity of motives behind this type of struggle, where moral elements are mixed with rational calculations (Ananya, 2007).

According to Castells, these undertakings can be analysed in terms of urban social movements as being organised and territorially based movements for those who struggle for social transformation and change, or “emancipation” as Schuurman and van Naerssen discuss, or an alternative to the tyranny of modernity in Friedmann’s perception (Bayat, 1997).

Similarities seem to be quite striking: they are both urban, struggling for analogous aims such as housing, community building, collective consumption, official recognition of their gains, and so forth (Bayat, 1997).

Since the informal movements are considered as “lacking any political meaning, and as illegal encroachments justified on moral grounds as a way to survive” (Bayat: 1997; 62) then how do they turn into collective and political struggles? So long as the actors carry on with their everyday advances without being confronted seriously by any authority, they treat what

they are doing as an ordinary everyday practice. Once their gains are threatenedthey become conscious of their actions and the value of their gains, and they defend them collectively and audibly (Bayat, 1997).

Hence, Bayat describes the logic of transformation from individual to collective action later as it may go so far as to give some structure to their activities, by producing networking, co-operation or initiating more structured organisations. Such organising is aimed at maintaining, consolidating and extending those earlier achievements (AlSayyad, 2004).

• The State in the “Everyday forms of Class Resistance” How does the state enter the arena of resisting informal practices? State opposition usually occurs when “the cumulative growth of the encroachers and their doings pass beyond a tolerable point” (Bayat, 1997: 62). Depending on the efficiency of the state, the availability of alternative solutions, and the resistance of these quiet rebels, states normally tolerate scattered offensives, especially when they have still not become a critical force. “The trick for the actors, therefore, is to appear limited and tolerable while expanding so much that resistance against them becomes difficult” (Bayat, 1997: 62) Indeed, many informal practices try deliberately to halt their spread in certain areas by not allowing their counter-parts to join them. In this case, many want to take advantage of undermined state power at times of crisis to spread further and establish their position. In brief, the protagonists exploit the three opportunities: “crisis, bribing and invisibility” (Bayat, 1997: 62) which allow these informal practices to stay tolerable when in fact increasing. Once the extent of their expansion and impact is exposed; however, the state reaction and crackdown often become unavoidable. In most cases, crackdowns fail because they are usually launched too late, when the encroachers have already spread, become visible and achieved a “critical mass” (Bayat, 1997: 63). As Al Sayyad and Bayat described the process as “cancerous sores on the beautiful body of the city” (AlSayyad, 2004: 18; Bayat, 1997: 63) captures the dynamics of such a movement. The sources of the conflict between both, the state and the “disenfranchised” is connected to the economic and political costs, which

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quiet encroachment enforces on the authorities and the rich. Informal practices, hence, is described as being “free-of-charge redistribute the public goods exert as a heavy burden on a state’s resources” (Ananya, 2007; Bayat, 1997: 63).

Hence, the popular as the poor control over contracts, regulation of time, space, cultural activities, working life. In short, such practices are self-regulated and managed, a way to reclaim significant political space from the state. Herein, the inevitability of conflict lies in the “street politics” (Bayat, 1997) demonstrates the most noticeable aspect of this conflict, accounting for a key feature in the societal life of the marginalised.

By “street politics”, Bayat means a set of “conflicts and the attendant implications between a collective populace and the authorities, shaped and expressed episodically in the physical and social space of the streets from the alleyways to the more visible pavements, public parks or sports areas” (Bayat, 1997: 63). In this sense, the streets can serve as the only locus for collective expressions, but “by no means limited to, those who structurally lack any institutional setting to express discontent” (Bayat, 1997: 63). This group of people includes residents, the unemployed, street subsistence workers and uneducated members. The term indicates a discontent articulation by clusters of different social agents who do not have institutions, evident leadership or coherent ideology to follow, to transform, then their “streets” into a space (arena in Bayat’s word) of politics.

First, Foucault’s overall observation about “space as power” results from the use of public space as a scene of contestation and manifestation between the public and the authority. He discusses what actually makes the street an activity for political is the “active or participative” which is opposite to the passive use of space; therefore, the usage of crossroads, street pavements, urban land, space for collective and public expressions and events to share cultures, “all become one site for contestation” (Fouccault, 1976 cited in Bayat, 1997: 63-64). These sites hence become the domain of the state power, which regulated their use and make them orderly. According to the rules set by the state, it is expected from the users to operate

passively; however, any active and participative use as Fouccault described it, can challenge the whole image of authorities’ control and those who (social groups) are benefiting from such order. These types of activities which happen as “street life” are by no means a novelty. Nevertheless, what gives these political novel features: is that in the past, local communities enjoyed a great deal of autonomy and self-regulation; however, today they are under a centralised state which interfere and control and the streets and the local life (Bayat, 1997). Second, the way that street politics shape the operation of what Bayar has called it “the passive network among the people who use public space” (Bayat, 1997: 64).

Any collective political act, which mobilises actions, requires some degree of organisation, communication and networking among various actors. For the most part, this is constituted deliberately, either formally or informally. “The street as a “public place possesses this intrinsic feature, making it possible for people to mobilise without having an active network”(Bayat, 1997: 64). This is accepted through passive networks the “instantaneous communication among atomised individuals which is established by the tacit recognition of their common identity and is mediated through space” (Bayat, 1997: 64; Annaya, 2004; AlSayad, 2009) • Passive Network to Empower the Dispossessed

For an outside observer, the informal practices might appear as “quixotic to be assembled under the same heading, as representation of everyday forms of resistance is legion” (Scott, 1989: 34). Any form of informal practice is nothing than reflecting the image of various forms of appropriation; is likely to be “one - or many - forms of everyday resistance devised to thwart that appropriation” (Scott, 1989: 34).

From what is listed previously, the dynamics of informality are reflected in the informal mass transit, which are generally defined as areas containing a large constituent of “transit-dependent” (Dillivan, Jiao, 2013: 24 populations with limited automobile access where the level of mass transit service (supply) does not adequately service these populations (demand). In other words, “it is defined as areas that lack adequate public transit service given areas containing populations that are deemed

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transit dependent” (Dillivan, Jiao, 2013: 24).

Public transportation is vital to the health of cities. The early challenges to racial discrimination and segregation attacked discriminatory practices which can limit the access to mobility by minorities.

Today, this segregation of society still exists and even became larger because of the reliability on the car, yet it is manifested through access of modes of transit.

Sanchez and Brenman, in their 2008 book “The Right to Transportation”, identify many aspects to ensure an equitable transportation system, such as to ensure opportunities for meaningful public participation in the transportation planning process (participatory process), to allocate the profits and burdens from transportation projects equally among all income levels and communities; provide a high-quality services while emphasising on access to economic opportunities and basic mobility to all communities, and to emphasise on the transit-dependent populations; and prioritise equally all the efforts to both revitalise the poor and minority communities while expanding transportation infrastructure. Thus, equitable transportation systems can be critically found of a pluralistic society which is inclusive, where it affords access and opportunities for everyone.

However, transport is producing inequity, injustice and unfairness for all inhabitants, as involving the endeavour of distributing public goods and services to those in the greatest need, usually are people with low-income, disadvantaged and marginalised populations. Informal transport, in this sense provides much needed and much valued mobility, especially for the poor (Suzuki et al., 2013, Dillivan, Jiao, 2013). The manifestation of such practices, create a “resistance system” (Scott, 1987) where the operators of the buses provide indispensable services, as the important role in connecting poor neighbourhoods to job centres which are usually underappreciated (Bayat, 1997; Cervero, 2000; Suzuki et al., 2013). Besides, low− skilled labours are vital in providing the maintenance, service, and manufacture inputs necessary to sustain a rapidly industrialising economy (Cervero, 2000).

Enhanced mobility increases the transitive space of a metropolitan area, enlarging the labour and providing access to enough potential workers to keep wages competitive in the global marketplace.

Increasingly, informal carriers are catering to the mobility needs of middle−class workers as well. These privately operated small scale services are varyingly referred to as “paratransit”, “low−cost transport”, “intermediate technologies”, “transit desert” and “third−world transport”, etc. But, the best term that reflects the context in which this sector operates is “informal transport” (Cervero, 2000: 3; Dillivan, Jiao, 2013). While private, small vehicles services, such as taxis, can be found in all cities of the world, what separates informal transport operators from others is that they lack, to some degree, official and proper credentials. In some instances, operators lack the necessary licenses or registration to enter the market in what is a restricted, regulated marketplace, or sometimes the operators fail to meet the basic requirements such as minimum vehicle size, maximum age, etc. Other violations for the law can include absence of a commercial driving permit, lack of liability insurance or/and operation of a disorganised or substandard vehicle. Despite such transgressions, in many cases the informal transport sector is endured by public authorities, permitted to exist as long as it remains more or less “invisible” for motorists, these practices have to be limited to low income neighbourhoods. Often, patrol officers and local “bosses” must be paid off for the right to operate in their “turf” (Cervero, 2000: 3).

Informal transport is about as close to laisser−faire transportation as can be found. Through the invisible hand of the marketplace, those who are willing−to− pay for transport services make deals for lifts with those who are willing to provide (Cervero, 2000: 3). Thus, informal transport involves commercial transactions which differentiate them, as transport services, from the delivery of free lifts, whether by friends, connections, or truck driver back hauling with empty loads from the marketplace, all common forms of mobility in many poor areas. “It is this more limited definition of informal transport, namely ones involving “pay for services” (Cervero, 2000: 3).

Informal transport services are also notable for their role as “gap fillers” (Cervero, 2000: 5).

These practices exist in large part to fill the gaps left unfilled by formal public transport operators. Rapid motorisation, poor road facilities, and the inability to deliberately plan have given rise to high levels of traffic congestion and air pollution in many cities.

Formal public transport services can rarely meet the

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task of satisfying rising demands for travel (Cervero, 2000, Gauthier, Weinstock, 2010). Besides, most public transport operators exist as being protected monopolies, and therefore lack the tax incentive to contain costs, operate efficiently, innovate, or respond to shifting market demands. Buses are often old, break down sometimes, and get stuck in slow moving traffic movement. To help the poor, fares usually are kept low; however, this can lead to reduce the revenue intake which in turn can preclude service improvements. All too often, public transit can find itself in a free fall of being detoriarated serrice and decrease incomes. It is only because regulations and rules are “laxly enforced that unlicensed operators are “informally” able to step in and pick up where public transport operators have left off” (Cervero, 2000: 5; Suzuki et al., 2013).

Moreover, rapid motorisation and inadequate urban transport planning and management have led to unbearable levels of traffic congestion, increase in air pollution and lost urban economic productivity GDP. Falling levels of resources to subsidise these systems has led to weakening service and lacks of revenue. Transport injustice was created because those urban residents who couldn’t afford to own private vehicles, have been negatively affected since the alternatives for travelling have either completely disappeared (no more state owned transport) or it is expensive (as Uber). In response, the informal transportation sector has burgeoned within the streets of the cities in both developed or developing worlds to fill the gap of inadequate and increasingly expensive public transport, or simply because the state does not provide it anymore. In some cases, the informal systems are efficient, effective and meet the real need of many residents, but they are yet to be regulated, organised to pose a threat to motorists, road safety and the environment. Local, regional and national transport decision makers and managers should think about tools and techniques, to create more rational plan and regulate the informal transport system, on one side to maximise its inherent economic and the existing planned public transport. It is essential to incorporate fully into the overall transport fabric of the city to provide a much needed complementary role, particularly for those who unable to afford cars.

Furthermore, the informal transport is a doorway to urban employment. It provides desperately needed employ for hundreds of thousands of inexpert, young men, many who have just arrived from the rural areas in hopes of improving their lives. Then, the services can provide greater diversity and differentiation. There is marvellous diversity in travel preferences, such some passengers want fast, comfortable services and can pay a premium fare for them, while others are satisfied to travel more slowly and give up some comfort to have a cheaper trip. Informal transport improves the tapestry of urban transport offerings (Gauthier, Weinstock, 2010). As mentioned before, informal transport is resourceful and cost−effective practices. Accordingly, “paratransit” best functions in a supporting and supplemental, rather than replacing, role. For instance, as in any other city in developing world as São Paulo, Cairo, Amman, etc., the streets are fleets of small, low-performance vehicles driven by private operators to serve low−income neighbourhoods. In most third world countries, informal public transit saturates the urban fabric. The need to move within the city has given rise to private “informal” services to reimburse for the absence of an adequate inclusive public transportation system. In many cases, this sector is showing to be, a worthy substitute for state services. Each country has its own type of informal transportation: small buses, three-wheelers, or motorcycles. They go by different names: rickshaws in India, tuk-tuks in Thailand, matatus in Kenya, and jeepneys in the Philippines (Cervero, 2000).

Finally, the informal operators can easily change schedules, roads, and functioning practices in answer to unstable market conditions. Private minibus and micro−vehicle operators are more likely to craft new, “tailor−made services in response to increases in suburb−to−suburb commutes, trip−chaining, and off−peak travel than are public authorities” (Cervero, 2000: 7). Their inherent flexibility and sensitivities to changing markets stand in sharp contrast to the rigidities and indifference of protected monopolies.

Build on the literature review about Informality in the general and public transport; I will discuss the informal transport in Beirut, which answers the needs of certain inhabitants in the city.

Then, I will examine if this informal transport practices are socially innovative by connecting the informal

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transport mechanisms to the social innovation dynamics.

4.3.

Emergence of Informal Practices

It is difficult to distinguish between formal and informal public transport in Lebanon generally or Beirut specifically, where infrastructure, vehicles and operations inter-twine along this spectrum.

The informal public transport comprises a fleet of minibuses or vans, buses, and shared taxis called ‘service’. In addition, taxis operating from registered offices, Uber or state-provided buses represent the formal public transport in Lebanon. Initially after the war, 22 bus routes were operational. A large number of transport providers compete to serve a demand that is less than the exist-ing available capacity (Baaj, 2008: 91). Moreover, these compete on the same route with taxis, shared taxis and the state provided buses. Violations by informal public transport vehicles comprise running on diesel rather than gasoline, overtaking, no dedicated stops, carrying more passengers than the vehicle’s capacity, no announced schedule, speeding, and maintenance. Add to this the driving pattern of service providers, similar to what was happening before the war, and not sticking to dedicated routes to mitigate congested segments of the network, or bypassing the vehicle capacity by carrying more riders. One shortcoming of the informal bus system is that each operator has its own ticket and therefore fares are paid separately and no integration exists, similar to informal transport in other countries. Thus, the Informal transport in Beirut is without exception the domain of the private sector, owned and operated by private freelancers.

Drivers sometimes own vehicles, though in many instances vehicles are leased by absentee−owners for a set fee or a share of daily proceeds. For instance, I was informed from many of the operators even from state bodies, that there are 4000 buses/vans legally recorded in the state, but there are 12000 buses/vans operating on the roads, “on a checkpoint, the police won’t check the number of the vehicle’s chassis, they will ask for your papers only, we need to satisfy the market”, he continued “let’s face it, the state knows and is giving us the permission to operate on our own…Besides, the state simply doesn’t care” said Ali Mawla, the owner of the Airport’s vans from Dora.

Such a statement was validated during my meetings with the state bodies Hoda Salloum, the Chair Board

of Directors of Traffic Management Committee in Beirut, Mathilda Khoury, Ziad Nasser, Abdel Haffiz el Kayssi and Ali Mohieddine “the state knows that there is illegal buses running on the Lebanese roads, which are causing traffic and accidents, but we can’t do anything right now since they are serving their communities”, then “Informality, you can call it corruption, is customised to our needs” said Nasser.

After reconnecting the war-time divided city, urban mobility was vital to reinstating everyday urban life, yet it had to cope with the country’s perpetual instabilities. Known as a privately operated system, mass transit or simply “informal public transport” which is similar to the “public transport doesn’t exist in Lebanon”. According to most Lebanese; the system is characterized by being resilient to the apparent chaos, and as mentioned earlier it reflects a mitigation tool responding to instability and the absence of a state-run public transport, which is necessary for an equitable urban mobility. However, this mass transit system and network is debatable in the city and considered unregulated, unsafe or non-existent. For certain instances, one proposal in 1999 was to separate the role of government as planner and regulator of the transport system, from being a service provider, and rather provide the suitable conditions for fair competition among private providers who would finance the bus fleet and operations (Baaj, 2008: 96). Besides, Both the taxi and service owners and drivers and bus owners have urged the government to reform and organize the public land transport sector in Lebanon” (Baaj: 2008: 96). All three private sector syndicates have offered to fully support the “regulatory role of the government and to cooperate with it to ensure a successful implementation” (Baaj: 2008: 96). One proposal was to have a shared or integrated fare across providers gaining access following a tender process, however, these proposals remain dormant, paving the ground for a laisser-faire approach.

Moreover, to understand the everyday practices of how the buses or vans operate in the city, two scrutinized case studies aim to analyse and evaluate the initiatives portrayal of values and empowerment of the dispossessed through the case of Cola, and Van number 4 and Bus number 2.

To note, I chose to elaborate on Van 4 although it is doesn’t operate on the lines between Dora and Cola;

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however, this lane is an intersection node for other bus lanes. Hence, a societal and cultural exchange could happen. Analysing the socio-economic and organizational structure can reveal how did this system start and persist, considering the failure of all other attempts in the public transportation sector in Lebanon?

The analysis was made possible through a heavy and comprehensive examination of observations, documentations and street level analysis based on participatory observations and semi-structured interviews to closely observe the practices of drivers and passengers, interact with them, in addition to mapping their geographical location expression, and its relation within the mobility structure of the areas or lack thereof where it takes place.

The analysis of the findings will first unfold the details of the practice, the activity itself, and connect it to the right to participate in the everyday activities. Then, to go beyond the physical and direct specifications of the practice by shedding light on the implications of the activity on a larger scale and on the urban space and experimenting with the notion of appropriating the lines as “ours”. Lastly, the interpretation will seek to highlight the bigger effects but also prospects of the practice, trying to underline the political side of it.

The services are designed and priced according to the market needs. Because it is purely private, the informal transport sector obtains no direct operating or capital support from the public largesse. In many cases, informal transport services networks are managed and coordinated through formal arrangements, like cooperatives and route associations (Moussawi, 2016). To add, the vehicles of the entrepreneur or the driver compared to the formal sector fit about sixteen passengers and they are also more manoeuvrable in busy traffic, and can accelerate or decelerate according to the traffic or the passenger needs. But, let us get to know first who the drivers are.

4.3.1. Retirement under the bridge, “the privilege of being Lebanese”

“Mafi Dawleh, A’yshin Al barakeh...” [4]

He answered with half smile, the bus driver from Cola [5] sitting under the bridge on an old chair. An expected answer to my question: how can you survive every day? Especially that you don’t earn a lot? He continued, “After I got my retirement, yes… I was an auditor, but the privilege of being a Lebanese is you don’t get your pension when you retire. Instead, the state gives you the chance to become a driver before you turn 64 [6]”. When planning retirement in Lebanon, a key question one needs to ask is “Do I have enough money in my bank savings to account for my old age?” And if not, then “can my children take care of me or do they have enough money to pay for my old age?” If the answers are to both questions “no”, then the retired person can opt to rent or buy a taxi license upon retirement to secure a source of income for the grey-haired years. The retired men find themselves applying to replace the “Nomra Hamra” (or the Red plate) [7] in English, to have access through the current National Social Security Fund (NSSF) to some basic rights as medical services or maternity (Salloum, 2018). Indeed, for many workers in the Lebanese private sector, when they reach retirement age entails to confront an ambiguous future with insufficient access to social protection. This yields a large section of the inhabitants with barely having an income in old age, susceptible to falling into poverty (Mikhael, Saadeh, 2016). According to the IMF report in 2016 “Sustainability and Equity Challenges: Some Arithmetic on Lebanon’s Pension System”, Lebanon is the sole country in the MENA [8] that does not offer social security for retirees in the private sector.

“Even though several reform proposals have been formulated since the early 2000s, none have been implemented to date. Costs escalate with every year of delay, so action is required soon to address these challenges” (Mikhael, Saadeh, 2016: 2).

Therefore, the drivers chosen for the system have the opportunity to experience life or simply talk about politics with their riders!

Figure 10: an old man got his retirements 5 years ago. Since then, he became a taxi driver Source: Author, February 2018 Location: Dora, Beirut

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4.3.2. Creating of Bus Cemeteries: Charles el Helou, Cola and Dora

Charel Helou Station Dora Intersection

Cola intersection

In post-war Beirut period, public transportation has been silenced whilst private transportation corporations are providing a shortterm solution for transport. Underused buses and tramways can be seen as tombs from a distance in “Bus Cemeteries” located at the central stations of “Mar Mikhael” and “Sahet Al Abed”, these are two neighbourhoods in Beirut, under the supervision of caretakers who watch unused 500 buses every day.

Cola and Dora [9] are the two central transport hubs, however, their socio-political fabric have altered significantly (Niasari, 2011). In Cola, political forces includes Hezbollah [10], the Amal Movement [11], accompanied by Lebanese Army govern. This area is an overlap of Shiite and Sunni Muslims in South-West Beirut, so the tensions between the two sects rise under bridge (Niasari, 2011). It is the reason behind the location of the Lebanese army in Cola, as well in Dora. During my field work, many drivers were saying that independent bus and taxi drivers are suffering due to the extreme monopolisation of private bus companies [12], it created chaos and a constant fear in their everyday activities. This chaos is also seen, in the Dora roundabout, where foreign workers (such as Syrians, Pakistani, etc.) conquer the large area under the bridge for days and weeks without jobs (Niasari, 2011; Faraj, 2018). These transformations are evidence that the transport hubs in post-war Beirut are not only zones of conflict at a local level but a representation of the sectarian which divides Lebanon today (Moussawi, 2016; World Bank, 2014) Since the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War, Cola and Dora have functioned as informal transport hubs.

Charles Helou Bus Station, a damaged monument during Civil War, was re-established in 1995-1996 to formalise a central terminal for Beirut’s private transport sector (Nabti, 2000). Located in the industrial port area of Beirut, the investment of this Figure 11: Aerial view for the three transportation hubs, Cola, Dora and Charel el Helou Source: Author, February 2018 Location: Dora, Beirut

huge multi-level terminal was proposed to create an organised transport system for the private operation of bus and taxi companies, besides this transport terminal, is used for regional and national buses.

By the year 2000, the organisation was changed, and companies began to operate autonomously regardless the rules and regulations, which created a conflict between Beirut Municipality and the private operators (Niasari, 2011). Therefore, the huge space was left empty because the offices left and operated somewhere else, which fell against the requests of the Lebanese Council of Ministers who limited all the long-distance ground transport to Charles Helou.

Later, Beirut Municipality neglected of infrastructure within the station as it did not maintain the empty office spaces, shops, mini-markets, toilets, car parking and sidewalks, which caused a deterioration of the structure. In its current underused state, the ground level of Charles Helou still operates as terminals for buses and taxis where one can find informal food shops, wandering salesmen and a Muslims makeshifts in their praying zones [13] whereas the upper two levels remained vacant and exclusively operate as an emptiness that projects images of what the city could be (Nabti, 2000).

When I was asking a taxi driver about Cola he said “from Cola you can go anywhere you want”, though he was exaggerating a bit. Then he continued “you can go to North South, the mountains, Bekaa valley, or around Beirut”. If someone is heading to Cola, the taxi (service) will ask the passenger “after Cola, where are you going?” because Cola as well as Dora, is an intersection hubs where people exchange the buses/ vans to go to other areas. However, nothing remained in Cola today what suggested being a public area, with greenery, not least based on the typical architectural specifications of what constitutes an urban public space. According to Ali Mohieddine, “City of Beirut did not implement the landscape project for the space under the bridge”; however, Khoury said during the interview “No… we did implement the project, it is there… there are trees, a green public space, with urban furniture, but since it became crowded with vehicles, you can’t it”. Indeed, a passer-by can only see the Lebanese army under the bridge with some homeless, but can someone define a public space because the existence of trees?

In fact, Cola is overpassed and separated

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into two equal parts by a bridge whose pillars fill up the public place under the bridge. The square was named after the Coca-Cola factory was built there; however, the factory had disappeared a few decades ago. Looking at Cola, one can notice two contraditions which coexist. First, the rectangular space is perforated by the bridge: “it is a public square that does not look like a square” said Modieddine. Then, it is named after a factory that does not exist anymore. Forty years ago, the area did not even have a name; however, an anonymous person during the war was inspired by the large factory, the most famous place in the region. “They are fighting at Cola,” he said (Abi Samra, 2013). From that moment on, the word “Cola” turned to be the name of the area (Abi Samra, 2013).

Today, the word “Cola” exudes the image of a chaotic world, full of events and incidents, which marks the area’s recent history and urban makeup in an imagination of a divided and conflict-ridden Beirut. Getting nearer and walking around the square, we witness features of the world of popular transportation, flanked by faces from a wretched “underworld.” Cola is one of the most important transportation hubs in Beirut; it is disorganized, in disarray, and with the minimum of facilities and administration. What distinguishes the under bridge area and keeps it almost under control are the values, traditions, relations, hustle and bustle, and sometimes violent squabbles (Abi Samra, 2013, UTDP, 2014) of the taxi, minivan, and bus drivers: mixes of drivers and passengers, who hail from the four corners of the city. Alone or in groups, they form mixes of Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian.

They converge at the square to move to other neighbourhoods in Beirut, the suburbs, and other parts of Lebanon. One can also notice the heavy presence of students from Beirut Arab University (BAU) in the square and connected streets. The square-station is filled with men, busy transporting, exchanging money, selling food and alcohol. You see them on the wide sidewalk, sitting, lying down, or sleeping on ragged blankets and cardboard boxes near the bridge’s columns. You might assume that they are wandering, desolate homeless and arriving from faraway lands. Transport is the soul of the square, its beating heart, throughout the day and less so at night (Abi Samra, 2013).

Through these chaotic and conflict environment, Cola, Dora and Charles Helou Bus Stations have the incredible potential to act as catalyst power engines to convert the interaction of social and economic life in Beirut. While the buses remain operating within cemeteries amongst the wild growth of concrete jungle (real estate development), the private bus companies continue to monopolise the system and disregard the need for change in a country struggling to improve its lost identity (Mohieddine, 2018; Moussawi, 2016; Niassari, 2011).

livelihood, as connections to and building networks “wasta” in Arabic, with one’s sectarian community and its associated elite families continue to enhance individuals’ access to social services and provide avenue for socioeconomic mobility (Monroe, 2010; Mohieddine, 2018).

•

Governed by state bodies:

Immobility or Mobility?

To illustrate, the omni-present public transport in the city is divided as follows:

The absolute immobility of Beirut’s public transport infrastructure stresses the nature of post-war reconstruction development as if it was constructive and deconstructive acts at the same time, where the lack of a centralised control has caused the failure of reestablishment a public service for its people. The solution remains undetermined in a system with no legal framework and no political commitments, which created conflict within all institutions seeking to rebuild the longevity of Lebanon’s civil services (Nabti, 2000). Beyond the socio-economic values that could be realised, the future success of these developments could guarantee the expectations and aspirations of the citizens beyond a short-term expedience of corporate profit that currently dominates the longterm potential of rebuilding Lebanon.

- OCFTC (Office des Chemins de Fer et des Transports en Commun, or Railway and Public Transportation Authority in English) is the Lebanese government authority, which operates public transportation in Lebanon.

De facto, the transport hub is a hub that leads to different destinations, but what I noticed during my visit to Cola and Dora, is that the operation of the buses is a true reflection of Lebanese politics and society. Indeed, it is based on confessionalism, a form of consociationalism, which refers to powersharing arrangements between different confessional sects within the mass transit network system in this case. Then, clientalism and territorial divisions come in. A Druze bus operator told me, “Our public transport is like playing cards: What is your role, to which party do you belong, and who do you serve?”

The system is divided. Referring to my meeting with Ziad Nakat and Tammam Nakkash [14], “one of the best solutions of the BRT, or any state transport project is to remove the divisions among the lanes, so we don’t encounter a bus of “Abou Toni” or “Abou Ali [15]”. Without forgetting, sectarian identity remains noticeable in matters of politics, civic life, and even

- Lines are operated by loose networks of individuals, such as Number 22 or the Bekaa vans

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Privately owned: - Party owned (Hariri) lines are corporate Connex, LCC, LTC/Zantout -

Family businesses as Ahdab, Sakr, Estephan

- Route associations or fleets of a few owners with shared management as Bus Number 2, Number 5 and Van 4

In addition, Municipal buses are challenging the current system, by providing free rides in the city such as Dekwaneh [16] and Ghosta [17], or organized such as Bourj Hammoud [18] municipality, Ghobeiry [19] , recently introducing electrical buses which operate in their (you mean Ghobeiry?) area.

To illustrate, the spatial borders that can be found among the sectarian territories are also reflected in transport. For instance, there are two different types of large public buses that custody the same fare: the red and white Lebanese Commuting Company (LCC) buses, which has a more official touch including a machine that automatically dispenses a receipt after the rider pay for the driver, and the less formal white buses, whose drivers are frequently changed along

the route. The reason behind this is because the LCC Company is possessed by Hariri and the white buses are lane owned by Berri. Nabih Berri, the speaker of the parliament, Lebanon’s third most powerful political position, is the leader of the political party Amal, which is associated with the Shiite community and is a member of the March 8th alliance, which opposes the March 14th alliance, led by the Hariri’s Future Movement party. In other words, Berri and Hariri are members of opposite political groups. The truth of the notion nevertheless, what is outstanding about the comment about one bus company is one being owned by Berri and the other by the Hariri clan is the way in which it portrays the public bus system itself as a field of battle between two different political parties with attachments to sectarian communities. This notion of sectarianism in the very means of mobility al submerges in people’s talk about the service. This happens for instance, when talking about the routes, some chauffeurs choose to drive along in their hunt for riders, each one in their area. Once again, social injustice is reproduced within the internal system.

• The Informal Bus Routes within a Sectarian Mosaic The important routes that pass through or originate at Cola include (Refer to Map 1) Number 1: Hamra to Khaldeh Number 6: Cola to Byblos Number 12: Hamra to Bourj Brajneh Number 14: Cola to Aley Number 15: Cola to Nahr el Mott Number 24: Cola to “Mat7af” (National Museum) LTC (Zantout): Cola to Saida OCFTC: all Lebanon Vans and minibuses to the Bekaa and Shouf regions also originate from there.

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Whereas in Dora, the important bus routes that pass through or originate at this hub include (Refer to Map 2): -

Number 2: Hamra to Antelias

-

Number 6: Cola to Byblos – Jbeil

-

Number 22: Baabda to Dora

-

Sakr/Gemayel: Dora to Bikfaya

-

Estephane: Dora to Bsharri

4.3.3. Analysis of Van number Common Practices and Mobility

4,

In parallel to the fieldwork I did for Van number 4 known as ‫ بولسأ ةایح‬or “lifestyle” on social media, two other studies were previously done by both Amer Mohtar and Petra Samaha, and Hala Moussawi in 2016 for the van. The first research was done from a socio-economic perspective; the latter was connected to the notion of “Appropriation and Right to the City”.

The purpose of choosing this line is to uncover the different economic, social, geographic, and political layers underlying within this system. In addition, to relate the manifestation of informal practices to the social innovation dynamics, whether informality is the answer to the unsatisfied need, social exclusion and injustice.

First, the success and persistence of van number 4 attributed mainly to the monopoly, power, and reinforced organised structure that created it, and still holds it. In contrary to popular belief, van number 4 is neither chaotic, nor strictly used by lower classes. The appreciation of its riders and drivers is also a clear indicator of its success.

This line became a social phenomenon, as well as an economic one. For instance, the line 4 or ٤ ‫[ طخ مقر‬20] is a part and parcel of the monopolised privately operated collective transport in Lebanon. Referring to Mohtar and Semaha (2016), 56,250 riders per day move

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Map 5: Spatial divisions of the lanes, at Cola intersection Source: Author, 2018

Figure 12: Collage of pictures from Cola Intersection, where each community is politcal affliated

Source: Author, February 2018 Location: Cola, Beirut

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Map 6: Spatial divisions of the lanes, at Dora intersection Source: Author, 2018

through van number 4. The line is being a named an connection between contradicting places where foreigners from different classes share the trip from the informal area of Hay el-Sellom in south Beirut to the cosmopolitan neighbourhood of Hamra in the Lebanese capital, and back. According to Mohtar and Semeha, during their trips at different times during the day, different days of the week, the riders change from one area to another.

For instance, “the van’s trajectory starts from Hay el-Sellom, near the campus of the Lebanese University, and reaches Mar Mikhael Church (Shiyah) through Al Sayed Hadi Nasrallah Highway. Then, it continues towards Tayyouneh, Ras el-Nabeh, reaches Downtown (Beirut Central District, BCD) passing by Bechara el-Khoury avenue, and stops near the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC), in Hamra. Zigzagging along the old green line [21], the van’s trajectory is one of its most important features on both social and urban levels” (Moussawi; Mehtar, Semeha, 2016: 3). The van is an efficient mobility system, which enable crossing long distances for a cheap fee. For 1,000 LBP (EUR 0.56 cents) only, “residents of Dahiya, the dense southern suburb of Beirut can reach Ras Beirut, and more specifically the Corniche, which is within walking distance from the van’s trajectory, the main open public space in the city” (Mohtar, Semaha: 3). The bus also connects to the Lebanese University in Hadath, an otherwise disconnected campus, to major destinations such as Hamra, Achrafieh, and Downtown. By linking proficiently distant districts, and allowing mobility to different socio-economic classes, van number 4 is able to tie marginalised districts to the city, thus enhancing social mixture in a highly polarised and separated context (Mohtar, Semaha, 2016).

The pre-history of the line was state owned.

In 2000, the line was established, which currently Figure 13: Rigidity? Seriousness? these are the Airport vans parking at Dora intersection Source: Author, 2018 Location: Dora, Beirut

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has three parking stations and is cooperated by three different operators known as the bosses. For instance, two of the bosses are associated with the syndicate of drivers in Haret Hreik allied to Hezbollah whereas the third boss belongs to a syndicate [22] affiliated to Amal. “All three men belong to the Z’aiter tribe [23], and organise amongst each other the organisation of all the vans’ work. They manage around seven “operators” at the three places, and one near Mar Mikhael church to collect the tickets from the drivers and ensure that they are abiding by the norms” [24] (Mohtar, Semaha, 2016: 4). These bosses are welded both by their financial interests, and their sectarian (Shi’i) bond, or assabiyya.

Although the tight tribal hierarchy was someway weakened by the interference of political parties, it still forms a important social system of rules and norms.

Moreover, the drivers themselves usually own vehicles. Today 225 vans operate along the line, only fourteen of which are large buses. Around four hundred men make a living working as drivers (Moussawi; Mehtar, Semeha, 2016). They have the choice to rent or own the van they run, so two drivers can work on the same van on different shifts. The average revenue of a chauffeur who rents the van is 100,000 Lbop per day (EUR 57). As for a van owner, it is 150,000 Lbp (EUR 85). Detailed explanations of the organisation and economic structure of the system are elaborated in the last section (Mohtar, Semaha, 2016). Before that, I present a brief historical summary and go over the social features of van number 4.

According to the founder of the Lebanese University’s parking station, the system “initiated in 2000 with thirty-five vans”, replacing the fleet of the LCC. Earlier, as of 1996, large LCC buses operated within the streets of Beirut, by providing public transportation services as a replacement for the state’s transportation networks whose public buses were not maintained well, yet they went out of service. The company also assured all of its fleet and passengers, and delivered social security service to its employees, paying regular taxes for the state, as well as required vehicle inspection fees. “The entire LCC fleet grew from ten buses in 1996 to a peak of 225, before it started regressing in 2005, when the political and security situation in the country

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worsened” (Mohtar, Semaha, 2016: 5). LCC buses not only “filled the gap” in the absence of public transport, but also presented a new transportation system by considering their own route network and conveying numbers to the routes. After the overthrowing of LCC from the grid of public transportation in Beirut, “the new operators who took over and controlled the lines separately retained the same trajectories and their assigned numbers” (Mohtar, Semaha, 2016: 5-6).

In the case of van line number 4, it wasn’t easy to replace the LCC. It was the result of years of fight that involved violence, such as the disruption of LCC buses and threats against their motorists. According to a manager in the LCC, arrest permits were later issued, but no one was stopped. “The Internal Security Forces personnel were either bribed to cover up or did not interfere at all to quell the violence” (Mohtar, Semaha, 2016: 5). In 2004, only two LCC buses kept operating on the line, and endured until 2008 (Mohtar, Semaha, 2016).

Like the case of line number 4 that was taken over by the Z’aiter family, party-political and territorial power groups took over most of the LCC lines [25] . Public authorities played a minimal role in organising the sector. The state controls and organizes the common transport sector in four ways: by issuing red license plates and special drivers’ licenses, setting transport fees (without applying them), as well as regulating the environmental specifications of the vans and buses by banning diesel engines.

(Mohiddeine, 2018; Mohtar, Semaha, 2016)

Moreover, the right to operate collective transport does not need an official state authorisation as “it is enforced mostly violently by territorial, sectarian, political, or tribal hierarchies” (Mohtar, Semaha, 2016: 8). This was one of the key issues behind the deterioration of LCC services to its current state: LCC only operates until now only line number 12, and a bus line that transports Beirut Arab University students from Beirut to their campus in Debbieh, a thirty-minute ride south of Beirut.

Yet, is the manifestation of informal practices in transport the answer for the unanswered needs? And to which level of social class does it extend? Then is it socially innovative?

Providing Rides in the City through • the Lens of Van Number 4

Back to the city of Beirut, the route of van number 4 is one of the key reasons behind its high variety of users, in terms of educational level and gender variety. To illustrate, both students from private universities such as AUB and from the public Lebanese University use it, in addition to AUBMC staff, European tourists, and migrant workers. The areas around the van line differ as passengers walk from varying distances to reach it; Referring to Mohtar and Semaha (2016) “80% of interviewed passengers walk to, or from their destination, for an average of three minutes”. However, the disabled can’t use the system or women with kids.

Van number 4 has been particularly moving onward in its creation in the city and its recognition as a static and well-organised service by users and authorities. When asked about the starting of the operation, the manager explained that it had been supposed as a practice advanced by the people for the people when private operators entered the line.

They tried to substitute the public buses provided by the state. “We did not want a private corporation to take over the system, it is a service for people”, he claimed, after explaining the creation of the syndicate for mini bus drivers in Lebanon in 2000.

The practice has grew with time, from starting with ten chauffeurs to forming a whole network of drivers and operators, while establishing an organised scheme as cited previously, but also to plan future lines and systems in Lebanon. He clarified: “It is our job to organise these transportation practices to ensure better labour situations for the drivers and a better service for the riders. The aim is to get a service “from the people to the people, Figure 14: Van 4 trajectories in Beirut, a way to stitch the fragemented city together Source: Author, 2018 Location: Beirut, Lebanon

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but it can only succeed when done properly, don’t forget that the streets are ours” (Mohtar, Semaha; 2016: 8). The legitimisation of the activity has been politically lobbied for, succeeding in establishing the practice in daily urban life. The operators of the service referred to their operation as a “right” that should be recognised by the state. This politicisation has permitted the registration of the activity in the transportation sector and its legalisation: today the state provides permits to people who aim to be part of the practice. In that sense, the system is already a private-public-civil hybrid.

Furthermore, passengers use van number 4 for many purposes as to go to work, leisure, visit family visit, to go to universities, etc. Even unaccompanied youths take the van to go to school, or to visit families. Females, especially young girls, favour it because it is safe. As an indication to the vans have a sense of safety because the families take the van. Drivers and passengers often call van number 4 as the most decent bus line in Lebanon.

Some stories are collective shared about other buses or vans as they drive fast and unsecure, sometimes individuals get harassed from the chauffeur or the riders, but the boss of the Airport’s vans was insisting on telling me that the drivers are “Wled A’yle” (an expression that shows people are well raised by their families). In addition, when I was taking pictures for the buses in Cola intersection, an old driver almost 80 years old told me “you can take photos, but first you have to kiss me and give me a hug”. I thought he was kidding and I wanted to leave the bus immediately, but he blocked the passage for me. My friends were waiting for me outside, he told me, “don’t come next time with your friends and I will be waiting for you”, then he tried to approach me, but I slapped him and left. However, this event didn’t let me stop my fieldwork or not take the bus again since I expected to encounter such people.

Throughout the fieldwork, findings show the reappearance of themes of utility, efficiency and affordability of the service, in addition to its visibility and transparency for passengers. Noting that 40% of car dependent users favour to use van number 4 since it is inexpensive, quicker and safer. Following my interview with Jessica Chemaly, Founder of Nahnoo NGO, “it is hard to come with private cars in Beirut because of the traffic, and the quasi-

impossible quest of finding a (cheap) parking spot, especially in Hamra, but I only use the van to go to Hamra, there is no other value than this”. Another interviewee was with a worker in Hamra, “the van is the only way to get to work, taking the taxi every day can cost me a lot of”. Another man, also living in Hay El Selloum told me, while travelling in the Van to visit his wife at the hospital in Hamra together with his three kids: “ the van facilated me to move to hospital and take my kids to visit their mother every day; it is good that there is this van”. The awareness of someone can access the bus system is related to the safety of women in public transport. For instance, the women feel safer in the Van because she is accompanied with other people instead of riding alone with a stranger in a car. Therefore, van numbers 4 became a substitute mode of transport, as well as the high level of passengers are satisfied and appreciate this service and appreciation. This has permitted it to become a favoured choice of transport, while the city is debating the dominant use of private vehicles. Most importantly, this finding challenges the common perception that those who have no alternative transport are the only riders of public transportation. To add, while each user has his/her own way of expressing their gratification and satisfaction vis-à-vis van number 4’s services. There is a main public source of evidence of the van’s success with people is the strong public provision exposed for it on “social media” as Facebook page and Instagram account. There are a lot of engaged people on the Facebook page, as passengers as well as drivers.

The interviews showed that individuals are grateful for the bus and consider it as very important mode of transport when there is no alternative to move around the city. Moreover, passengers also explained that the bus is very affordable for them.

Utility of the service is enhanced by the transparency and accessibility of the activity since its very start, and persons reported having used it for the past thirteen years. Passengers consider that the activity is tailored to their needs and they do contribute in its daily activity which makes them feel that they are part of the system. They can “hop on and hop off wherever they need” (Mohtar, Semaha, 2016: 5) while they can consider that they already know and trust the drivers, by getting used to rid with them every day. However, people have absolutely no relation with the actual operators of the service

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since the disconnection is only with the “modelling of the practice itself and the routes” (Mohtar, Semaha, 2016: 6). Yet, it is arguable that collective dimensions of the practice permit the system to accommodate for many users, and hence, the system receives a collective acceptance. For many passengers, the existing public transport is the only choice to commute; therefore, they participate in making the service better as it is their duty to help since the service is for them.

Mohtar and Semaha (2016) in their interviews with an old woman, “You move to let someone pass, you become patient, you get used to their driving, it is not a big deal, after all you are able to go to work and it is very good”. Furthermore, many explain that they see the organisation of the system and the people who are behind it, which gives the impression of a safe

system. Moreover, many passengers know who are responsible for this practice.

However, the informal sector is not necessarily good per se, but can also be the expression of domination, exploitation and exclusion.

The successful story about van number 4 is not seen in all the buses. If we go back to the lines divisions and to which community they serve; indeed, they serve their communities. An old woman said, “I only take the Sakr bosta from Bikfaya to Dora to visit my sister, but of course I won’t take other buses, I won’t go on a bus to West Beirut… I will go by car, it is much better”. Indeed, some riders only take the bus or the van because they have a purpose since the bus is considered as a representation of their communities.

Diagram 6: Organizational Structure of the Buses/Vans, Source: (Moussawi. 2017; Mohtar, Semeha, 2016) Edited: Author, 2018

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For instance, “I only take the Chouf Bus to go to Deir Al Amar, at least I am benefiting “eben dayaati” (person from the same village)” said a young man who was wearing the traditional clothes of Druze.

• Sharing Common Knowledge to Mobilise the System, between Drivers and Riders

The relationship between drivers and passengers is based on practices that were incrementally established and negotiated to create a smooth and a better trip. For instance, passengers must give prior notice to the driver if they do not have change for the fee trip of 1,000 Lbp. In some cases, as bus number 2 or OCFTC, the rider must pay before going on the bus and in return (s)he gets a coupon.

For Abou Ali, who oversees Bus 2, this system is much better “heik mnaaref adde aam byestaamlo bus, w ma byeser’ouna”, in other words the coupon is a way to get organized, know how much the line is earning per day and the number of riders.

In other cases, buses or vans do not follow the system of the coupon. Hence, the passenger can pay at the end of the ride. If the rider is sitting among the back rows, (s)he gives the money from seat to seat until it reaches the driver, then (s)he will receive the change back in the same way, in due time before reaching the final destination. In addition, and typically of all collective transport lines in Lebanon, there are no specific bus stops for any buses. However, a shared code is to avoid requesting to be dropped off on a green light.

Also, to ensure an enjoyable ride, riders prudently choose their seats in the van; in this case van number 4, some people wants to take control over the window. Some passengers use headphones as a barrier against socialisation, or to listen to their own playlist, especially if they do not like the driver’s taste in music. Others, especially the old people, prefer to get engaged in conversations, as a time killer during the trip.

According to Mohtar and Semaha (2006), “what distinguishes van number 4 from others buses or vans is the short wait time: usually a passenger spends only two minutes waiting for a spot in the van at peak hours. Occasionally, several vans arrive together to pick up the riders, and it leads drivers to

fight over clients. In other instances, they drive sideby-side, and initiate conversations if they happen to be related or good friends. A one-way ride ranges between forty-five and sixty-minutes, depending on the traffic, and the competency of the driver. Drivers also have the privilege of changing their route to avoid traffic, a practice which is much valued by passengers. They could also simply decide not to reach Hamra, because of blocked roads and traffic. Here, drivers’ strike deals between each other to exchange passengers, where one van would give his remaining passengers to another van that have more passengers heading to Hamra” (Mohtar, Semaha, 2016 : 6-7)

Additional tricks that clever drivers also use, is deliberately slowing down their movement to increase their chances of picking up more customers, especially if another chauffeur has departed shortly earlier, and has most likely collected the potential riders ahead they refer to it as “nayyim,” which literally translates as “put to sleep,” and is understood as stalling. To facilitate, their movements (slowdown in Englisgh), van drivers might select to drive after a taxi, which has common stops, faking they are as angry by this delay as their riders. They may also decide, unconventionally, to respect the traffic lights, and stop at the red ones.

Such debates form a set of codes and norms that both drivers and riders progressively learn and practice, ensuring each other’s suitability (Mohtar, Semaha: 2016)

The efficiency and accomplishment of van number 4’s organisation can be lead to two interdependent elements: a power structure and economics. One of the main pillars of the line’s success is “organisation”. According to Mohtar and Semeha(2006), it was noticeable how the bosses and operators organise the fleet of 225 vans and drivers and guarantee a smooth and efficient operation. An employee sitting in a shack next to the Hay El-Sellom’s station holds a stopwatch. In front of him, on the table, are some papers and a pen. “It’s your turn!” he screams, and a van leaves. He resets the clock, and starts the countdown again, and so on. The departure of the van each two three minutes is regular, yet flexible enough to adapt to demand: at peak hours, the waiting time decreases as the vans fill up rapidly and leave. This daily routine is sustained at each of the three stations. Through this structural process, the operators can limit arguments between drivers, and

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preserve a constant and common flow of vans, thus increasing the line’s reliability and its timekeeping.

Although the fleet grew incrementally since 2000, the same individuals who established it still manage and operate it. The network of van 4 has a power structure that holds the system together and secures its sustainability. Influential figures belonging to the same family/tribe, and sect, manage the stations. All the drivers obey, and respect them: their word is rarely contested, as they are the final arbiters in daily quarrels, and random issues. Each one of these individuals is known as the mas’oul[26] . While interviewing the mas’oul at the Lebanese University station, he received a phone call: “Yes, I solved the problem, it’s all been taken care of, it’s done… I will see you in a bit.” Such phone calls are part of daily practices to solve problems and mitigate conflicts. The mas’oul sometimes act as a judge settling disputes between drivers, and listening to complaints of customers, particularly females, hence gaining customers’ trust, and reinforcing the number 4’s reputation as the “most decent van line in Lebanon.”

Referring to the site visit done by Mohtar and Semeha to Hay El-Sellom, it also showed that the control, power, and respect the bosses have as well. When the team first arrived, they were able to interview some drivers, until the boss arrived, and wanted to know who they were. He insisted on them to sit in his open concrete booth and have coffee. Then, he examined the purpose of our visit, and our intentions. He was annoyed by their unawareness of who he was and got offended when they asked him if he was a driver. As more chauffeurs started to gather around, and make jokes with him, he shouted: “Come on, everybody back to your van, go take care of your business!”

(Mohtar, Semaha, 2016: 5) claps his hands as a gesture which represents that they need to proceed quickly. All the stakeholders recognize the importance of this organization in insuring a smooth working of the system: drivers understand the advantages of commitment, and discipline, while bosses need rules to monitor the number of drivers, and limit the oversupply that might cause quarrels, and loss of profit. Hence, the power structure of van number 4 is very well respected.

In some examples, the connection between the

motorists and operators goes beyond one of shared business interests, and develops dependent on respect and political and sectarian connections. For instance, “when some van owners started hiring illegal Syrian drivers, their Lebanese counterparts got annoyed, and considered them unfair competition. However, due to the social hierarchy, and common tribal origins between owners and Lebanese drivers, the latter did not protest or object. One driver told us: “I cannot say anything to the man allowing Syrians to work [the operator], he is of the same clan as mine (Z’aiter), and I am not going to start trouble with him. But of course, many drivers are not okay with this!” (Mohtar, Semaha, 2016: 9)

The drivers of the Van in Beirut replicate the practice as one providing them with a job without which they would not be able to resist their daily needs. Many explained that they resorted to this “occupation” after getting aged, losing older works, or not finding works in their fields of their knowledge. Younger drivers want to work as drivers after finishing secondary school. In relation to the purpose of the practice, some drivers explain their dedication to servicing people by affirming that without it persons would fight to move in the city.

They also confirm that it is a means for the younh people to make money and create a flexible work that answers to their needs (Moussawi, 2016).

For a driver to work on the van number 4 line, one must have a legal recorded van, a red license plate, and the appropriate driver’s license (NSSF, 2008). It is not common for informal bus lines to enforce these rules, however van number 4’s bosses insist on these conditions, perhaps to control who has access to work on the line. Then, “the driver must pay a onetime $100 fee, followed by a regular 10,000 Lbp (EUR 5) daily subscription fee (except on Sundays) to the boss of the station he is assigned to. The total daily sum paid by all the drivers to the bosses adds up to 1,800,000 Lbp (EUR 900) assuming 80% of the total number of vehicles (180 out of 225 vans) is working daily. This amount covers the salaries of the few workers that operate the stations, the land rent from the respective municipalities, and unknown fees paid to the syndicates” (Mohar, Semeha, 2016: 9-10). The basis for profit sharing between the operators, and the different stakeholders remained unknown. The revenue that the bosses earn goes most probably untaxed since they are not an actual registered business, like the LCC is. The drivers working on the line are not

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registered workers; hence the operators do not pay insurance service fees and are not responsible for the vans’ repair and registration.

Besides, the fee paid by the passengers has been constant at 1,000 LBP since 2008, with one noted attempt to increase it in February 2012 that only lasted for a couple of weeks. The fee of 1,000 LBP covers the different driver’s expenses and provides him with income. The driver’s expenses include the van and license plate rental if he does not own the vehicle, the fuel, the daily station’s fee, regular repairs and oil changes, and an optional weekly charge of 3,000 LBP (EUR 1.5) to use the station’s bathroom. Usually both the van and the license plate are rented or sold together.

A van without a red plate cannot operate on the line. The plates are limited in number and are quite expensive ($20,000 each). The plate comes with social security benefits, which can be passed on to the renter, and cover the driver and his family. If the van/plate is owned, then the net profit of the driver will increase (Mohtar, Semaha, 2016).

The proportional distribution of daily expenditures, and gross “profit with respect to the 1,000 LBP fee and the balance between supply and demand is fundamental for the efficiency of the economic model. The fee is affordable for passengers ensuring constant demand (56,250 passengers are moved daily) yet is enough for the drivers to make a living, (100,000 to 150,000 LBP net income per day, e.g. EUR 50 to 75), thus ensuring sufficient supply for the 250 vans operating daily.

High population densities that ensure the constant flow of passengers also maintain this balance between supply and demand. According to the boss of the Hay El-Sellom, “In the morning, people come in large groups, waiting in turn to get in a van.” Another component that contributes to the supply balance is the fact that not all vans operate at once. Even though drivers choose their working shifts themselves, these are directly related to demand and peak hours. The calibration of their schedules responds to the supply and demand curve to sustain sufficient revenue. The number of drivers working simultaneously varies across the day, to accommodate the demand, and prevent oversupply (which leads to the dissatisfaction of drivers), or undersupply (which leads to the

dissatisfaction of passengers). The drivers’ schedules are not set by a fixed rule” (Mohtar, Semaha, 2016: 8). A final note regarding the equilibrium of the van’s economic system relates to the van’s institutional structure, which is based on various factors as the vehicles size, occurrence, number of motorists, drivers’ timetables, fees, and peak and off-peak hours, and so on. The standardisation of all these variables has made of van number 4 a successful system and well-organised line, reaching an ideal “supply and demand” curve, sustaining customers on the demand side, and keeping drivers’ income high on the supply side, while feeding the power structure managing it fiscally and politically.

Finally, observations show that the social dimension of the practice is nevertheless expressed throughout the daily process, even though chauffeurs stop to pick up riders to increase their yield. This devotion is more understood through the interviews lead with the bosses. They all affirm that the practice’s first aim is “to serve people especially living in the southern suburbs, because without this mode they would not be able to reach the rest of the city”. Undoubtedly the providers of the service tend to romanticise their practice and their devotion, and it is perhaps the aim why the practice grew that much. Contrarily, young drivers who are on the route in the night firmly clarify that they only want to make income. When asked about what they think of the organisational structure, motorists illuminated that this organisation helped the system to succeed.

For them what the operators do is already in a way promising better conditions of their work and providing them with certain legality in the city, even though they do not contribute directly in the modelling of the practice.

In relation to the organisational structure of the activity, and while generally” informal transport practices around the world have an internal organization that is held in a loose and horizontal way” (Cervero, 2000: 12), it is obvious that in the case of the Van number four there is a vertical organisation, as operators are in charge and employees (drivers) are hired for monitoring the activity. Throughout this organisation, competition is turned down between chauffeurs and a better time-space distribution of

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the activity is better.

Understanding the practices of informal transport of the Van through the experiences of the passengers have allowed to test their distributional aspect daily and that leads to the formulation of the right to mobility as explained above. The practice does provide a right to mobility and accessibility to a considerable number of people by opening new spatial boundaries and allowing people to use urban space beyond their confined living places. What can we comprehend when looking what is beyond the distributional aspect of the service, by questioning its implication on urban space and its political dimension?

4.4.

Conclusion

To sum up, informality has created a situation in which individuals may belong, at one and the same time, to both the informal and formal sector, often with more than one job in the informal sector. Following the connotation between informality and the right to access amenities in the city as a starting point, we can set a lens that describes these activities as “foregrounded by individuals distinctly from ruling technocratic realms”(Moussawi, 2016: 5) starting a certain agency of people in relation to public transportation in the city. The practice is advanced by a group of persons away of “technocracy and formal planning institutions, a first characteristic for Auto-Gestion (Self-managed) or a social entrepreneurship to introduce innovation into modes of societal organization”(Moussawi, 2016: 5). Along these definitions, and by examining the aspirations of the providers of the service and their development for future control over the city, it is important to look at the informal public transport practice as a short or medium-term project that could set the keystone of a bigger urban program. Years ago, a public transport network has been applied in Beirut, deteriorated later by the civil war then undertaken by the private operators. To a certain extent, the Lebanese government could support and integrate the current system into a state system, yet it was unable to implement long term sustainable plans. The informal public transport, thus, keeps flourishing in different parts of the city (and the country) to address a need for transport not provided by the government, and destructed by the civil war.

To add, a first reading of all the bus system in Beirut might appear as chaotic, unsafe and unorganized. However, decoding its operation exposes how it is, in fact, an incrementally built on a well-organised system that defies, and redefines different socio-economic variables, while reinforcing socio-political hierarchies to persist. As the bus system is challenging the predominant car based organisation of the city while empowering some groups including bus owners, operators and some passengers. A part of the system is by “the people and for the people”, as a subtle balance between power of the managers and the drivers and riders contributions.

Beyond the right to mobility tested above, it is important to think whether these practices can reshape the urban geography of the city. At first, born out of the void, the informal practice goes beyond to constitute a struggle for an established public service in the city. The self-managed or (L’auto-gestion de l’espace) dimension, hence, is strongly confirming itself. The activism and selfsufficiency describe the providers of the service since the start, but desribe their future goal for taking over and their contributions in altering the way public transportation is recognised in the city of Beirut. To illustrate, Van number 4’s experience can offer many lessons to the state, whether it chooses to control the private transport sector, or to introduce its own public transportation facilities. There have been many successful case studies in which authorities legalised informal common transport, like in Bogota (Colombia).

Hence, how can this “informality” be combined into Beirut’s transport strategies and systems, and how can the delivery of an efficient and wellorganized public transport system show to be a worthy alternative for private car usage?

Finally, we already see a vertical power; however, a successful organisation structure might present some forms of labour abuses and power exerted through compulsion for example, announcing an internally divided system driven by profit. In fact, such system is empowering the dispossessed, creating a social justice in society through creating a right to access the city’s public services such as transport. However, it is only serving 1.7% of the society, and then the

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Figure 14: The bus system is a true reflection of the Lebanese Society Source: Author, February, 2018 Location: Dora, Beirut

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system is benefiting a small portion of people who are in need and can’t afford to buy a car. To note, only 1.7% of users are benefitting from the service.

Hence, the system is socially innovative. However, it is still reflects the sectarian organisation of the city, and new power concentrations have happened (Operators, drivers, communities, etc.) so new stages of social innovation are necessary.

Notes:

1. Consociationalism refers to power-sharing arrangements between various confessional sects within a state, however, after the civil war, established a stable fully functioning consociational democracy but instead had many sectarian conflicts, made worse through the time. In pluralistic society, patronage is often a common feature of the political process; the promotion of the interests of a particular sect is frequently widespread. The pervasiveness of the Clientelistic system in Lebanon is easily traced to feudal times, wherein the overlord allowed peasants and their families the use of land in exchange for unquestioned loyalty. In more recent times, this social system has been translated into a political system; the overlord has become a political leader or zaim, the peasants have become his constituents, and, instead of land, favors are exchanged for electoral loyalty.

And although Clientelism has its roots in the rural areas, it now pervades towns and large cities down to the neighborhood level.

2. Bayat, “From ‘Dangerous Classes’ to ‘Quiet Rebels’,” 548 3. It is an Arabic expression. Translated to English “there is no state, we are surviving through God’s Will” 4. Cola is a transport hub that provides transportation to all of Lebanon in taxis, vans and buses in the Southwest of Beirut 5. NSSF regulations, 2008 https://www.cnss.gov.lb/

index.php/book-taxi 6. Since 1996, the ministry of Public Works released a limited number of red plates into the market.

The state has not issued any new red plates, causing the emergence of a black market where red plates are traded. However, an official state office issues a market value approximation for these plates regularly; however, these prices are not 7. binding in any way. In addition, some drivers use the same (forged) red plate number on two or more identical vehicles and operate on different transportation routes in different areas. There are almost 12000 vehicles running in Lebanon and 4000 only are registered.

8. MENA is an English-language acronym referring to the Middle East and North Africa region.

The term covers an extensive region stretching from Morocco to Iran, including all Mashriq and Maghreb countries. This toponym is roughly synonymous with the term the Greater Middle East. An alternative for the same group of countries is WANA (West Asia and North Africa).

9. Dora is a transport hub in Northeast of Beirut 10. Hezbollah is a Shiite Islamist political party and militant group based in Lebanon. Hezbollah’s paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese parliament.

11. The Amal Movement (or Hope Movement in English, Arabic: ‫لمأ ةكرح‬‎ Ḥarakat Amal) is a Lebanese political party associated with Lebanon’s Shia community. It was co-founded

by Musa al-Sadr and Hussein el Husseini as the “Movement of the Dispossessed” in 1974.

12. Validated with through my interviews with Ziad Nasser, Tammam Nakkash and Abdel Hafiz Kayssi 13. due to the five times per day prayers required for practicing Muslims 14. Interview with Ziad Nasser was held on the 20 February 2018 at OCFTC, Gemmayzeh, and with

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Tammam Nakkash on 23 February 2018 at TEAM International, Hamra

organize strikes to denounce “strangers” driving operating in “their territory.”

15. Abou means Father, and Toni is a Christian name.

Whereas, Abou Ali is a Shiite Muslim name

26. The mas’oul is the person in charge of the parking station. He collects the daily fees from the drivers, helps in organizing the departure times, and ensures the smooth running of the process

16. Dekwaneh is a suburb north of Beirut in the Matn District of the Mount Lebanon Governorate, Lebanon. The population is predominantly Maronite Christian.

17. Ghosta is a municipality in the Keserwan District of the Mount Lebanon Governorate of Lebanon.

Its inhabitants are predominantly Maronite Catholics 18. Bourj Hammoud is a town and municipality in Lebanon located north-east of the capital Beirut, in the Metn district and is part of Greater Beirut. the town is heavily populated by Armenians 19. Ghobeiri is a municipality in the Baabda District of Mount Lebanon Governorate, Lebanon. The inhabitants of Ghobeiry are predominantly Shite Muslims.

20. Khat indicates the whole van system, including the fleet and its operators, operating along a specific geographic route.

21. Green line or Demarcation line which divided Beirut during the civil war, between West (Muslims) and East (Christians) 22. The syndicates remain as unregulated institutions that are subordinate to political influence. They are divided according to political parties and are used occasionally to convey the demands of the drivers to the State.

23. A Shiite family well known in Hay el Sellom 24. The coupon or bon is a piece of paper given by the operators to the drivers at the departure of each trip. At Mar Mikhael church, an employee collects these coupons from the drivers. Without it, the driver cannot continue his route, and will be eventually penalized 25. Every now and then, drivers on many bus lines

References: - Abi Samra, T. (2013) “Cola: A Station for Transportation and Seasons of Violence” from Tarek Abi Samra, Portal 9 Stories and Critical Writing about the City Issue 2, the Square, Spring 9 - Ananya, R. (2007) “Urban Informality Toward an Epistemology of Planning. Pages 147-158 | Published online: 26 Nov 2007 - AlSayyad, N. (2004) “Urban Informality as “New” Way of Life” from Roy, Ananya and AlSayyed, Nezar, urban informality: transnational perspectives from the Middle East, Latin America and South Asia pp. 7-30, Lanham: Lexington books; 2004.

- Bayat, A. (1997) “Un-civil society: the politics of the ‘informal people’. Third World Quarterly, Vol 18, No I, pp 53-72, 1997. Carfax - Cervero, R. (2000) Informal Transport in the Developing World. United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat). Nairobi, 2000 -

Fawaz, M. (2009)

- Fawaz, M., Peillen, I. (2009) “The Case of Beirut” Available at https://www.ucl.ac.uk/dpuprojects/Global_Report/pdfs/Beirut.pdf [Accessed: February 2018] - Moussawi, H. (2016) “Claiming Right to the City through Informal Practices? The Case of Informal Public Transport in Beirut” International Conference from CONTESTED_CITIES to Global Urban Justice Stream 1 Article nº 1-007. Available at http://contested-cities.net/wp-content/uploads/ sites/8/2016/07/WPCC-161007-ElMoussawi-Claimi

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ngTheRightToTheCityThroughInformalPractices.pdf [Accessed: November 2017].

- Mohtar, A. , Semaha, P. (2016) “Decoding an Urban Myth: An Inquiry into the Socio-Economics of Van Number 4 in Beirut” Available at http://www. jadaliyya.com/Details/32837/Decoding-an-UrbanMyth-An-Inquiry-into-the-Socio-Economics-of-VanNumber-4-in-Beirut [Accessed: November 2017] - Monroe, K. (2011).The insecure city: space, power, and mobility in Beirut. New Brunswick, New Jersey : Rutgers University Press - Nabti, J. (2004) “Leveraging Infrastructure: Sustainable Bus Rapid Route Planning in Beirut, Lebanon” (master’s thesis). Available from Department of Urban Studies and Planning and the Departmetn of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Niasari, N. (2011) “Beirut under the bridge” [Online Video]. Available from: http://www. mascontext.com/issues/10-conflict-summer-11/ under-the-bridge/. [Accessed: December 2017] - NSSF (2008) (Publications - Drivers Guide)” Available at https://www.cnss.gov.lb/index.php/ book-taxi - Krishnan, R. (1996) “Preferring Disorder over Injustice” Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 31, No. 2/3 (Jan. 13-20, 1996), pp. 77-82 - Seidman, S. (2012) “The Politics of Cosmopolitan Beirut, From the Stranger to the Other” Volume: 29 issue: 2, page(s): 3-36 Available on https://doi-org.kuleuven.ezproxy.kuleuven. be/10.1177/0263276411410446

Figure 15: Hoping one day, there will be an adequate public transportation for all Source: Author, February, 2018 Location: Karantina, Beirut in bus 15 (seaside)

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Chapter 5

Attempts to Restore Transport Justice in the City

In English: The role of Technology is to support the vulnerable people because they are the ones in need; besides, it should respect their presence and improve their lives (Faraj, 2018)

Figure 16: some notes for BMP to adapt on their map Source: Bus Map Project, 2018 Location: Beirut Design Week, 2018

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5.1. Introduction: Addressing Transport Injustice through Social Initiatives

Amid the “Clientalism”, “Sectarianism” and “Corrupted” environment, the city is sinking in informal practices as gap fillers to the instabilities in the country marked by issues of securitisation and differentiation (Fawaz, 2009). As discussed in the previous chapter, informal mass transit networks and systems were the answer for the failed strategies of the Lebanese government to implement long term vision for a sustainable urban mobility after the Civil War (1975-1990). The manifestation of a selfmanaged transport network appeared to be resilient to the apparent chaos in the mobility and transport which was necessary for an equitable urban mobility.

However, the current mass transit system and network (the buses and the vans) is perceived as a “popular collective transport”, an ubiquitous system, yet invisible and underappreciated, a problematic and misunderstood as being unsafe, unregulated and unreliable for the outsiders (non-riders), yet it answers the needs of certain people who are in need of such service. Hence, an injustice is inherited in the distribution of public transit resources which became harder to ignore. In reaction to transport injustice in the bus system, social initiatives known as the “Bus Map Project” emerged to reframe the debates regarding the informal bus system and network while promoting, exposing and making it more inclusive.

To address transport injustice in Beirut, “mapping” was used as a tool to map the bus routes, to reshape the contradictory positions of the bus as “it doesn’t exist” in people imagination; hence, make the system exposed, readable and transparent (Baaklini, 2018b; Chadi, 2018c).

However, how will the data collected through the mapping be used in the future for the sake of planning, policy making, and improve service provision for citizens? Then, does this local initiative only respond to the injustices in the bus system?

Can we assume that offering a “map” and an “app” of travel is enough to make people switch to more sustainable forms of transport (e.g. buses)?

In this chapter, I will examine the local initiative’s extent in provoking structural change in the position of the public transportation in the city.

To answer if this initiative is socially innovative, first,

I have to understand if BMP only responds to the injustice in the bus system? That would mean it can’t address the wider injustice of the bus system versus the car system? And the map can only contribute to the first (internal) injustice in the system. If that is true, the question is whether addressing the internal injustice helps to address the external injustice.

5.2.

Mapping is a Key to Articulate the City

Michel De Certeau talks about how making a map is “to plan a city is both to think the very plurality of to make that way of thinking effective” (Corner, 1999: 228). Mapping as a key for the city entails processes of meeting, working, reworking, collecting, sifting and speculating. Thus, mapping unfolds the complexity of the existing milieu, rather than imposing more or less idealized projects (Corner, 1999). Therefore, Corner argues in the “Agency of Mapping” or the mapping practice is a fantastic project; it creates and builds the world as much as it measures and describes it. The function of producing a map is less to mirror the reality itself. “Mapping, is a tool that reveals and realizes the hidden potentials. The creative practice of mapping is a way to emancipate the potentials and not invoking agendas, to uncover realities” (Corner, 1999: 20).

For instance, maps have long been used as tools to dispossess the colonised, establish sovereign control over territories and help make states. National maps are ‘symbols’ not unlike commercial logos that encourage people’s loyalty to the national brand.

When map-making came into trend with the rise of the nation-state in the 17th century, state officials and academic experts were tasked with mapping its lands (Leuenberger, 2014). Yet, by the 1980s, map-making was transformed from a domain of experts to a people cartography. With access to new GIS technologies and web-based software, including Google Earth, anyone with a computer and Internet access can make and distribute maps. “Maps are no longer just “topdown”, but also “bottom-up” (Leuenberger, 2014; Baaklini, 2018c). We commonly assume that maps are neutral, accurate, and illustrative of a world out there.

However, they are subject to selection, organisation, abstractions, and simplifications (Leuenberger, 2014).

By highlighting certain sites, yet de-emphasizing others, colonists may implant their geopolitical idea

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onto the land whilst cartographically eliminating the geography of the colonised. Therefore, for Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari: “Make a map not a tracing”, as the presentation of creating maps are more “tracings” than maps, defining patterns but revealing nothing new. What differentiates a map from the tracing is that it is “entirely oriented toward experimentation in contrast with the real.

The map does not reproduce an unconscious closed in upon it, it constructs the unconscious. It fosters connections between fields, the removal of blockages on bodies without organs, the maximum opening of bodies without organs onto a plane of consistency” (Corner: 1999: 20). In other words, the “unfolding agency of mapping” is most actual when its capacity for explanation also sets the circumstances for new eidetic and real worlds emerge. Unlike tracings, which spread redundancies, mappings learn new worlds within past and present ones; they connected new grounds upon the hidden traces of a living context. The volume to reformulate what already occurs is the important step. And what previously existed is more than just the physical attributes of terrain (topography, rivers roads, and buildings) but comprises also the various hidden services that underlie the workings of a certain place.

Harley argues that, the object of mapping is to create a ‘correct’ relational model of the terrain.

Its expectations are that the objects in the world to be mapped are real and detached, and that they enjoy a reality independent of the mapmaker; that their reality can be spoken in mathematical terms; that methodical surveillance and dimension offer the only route to cartographic reality; and that this truth can be self-sufficiently verified. The acceptance of the map as ‘a mirror of nature’ and also it results in a number of other characteristics of cartographic dissertation even where these are not made explicit. Most striking is the belief in progress: that, by the application of science ever more precise representations of reality can be produced.

The methods of cartography have delivered a “true, probable, progressive, or highly confirmed knowledge.

Hence, maps conceal certain realisms only to make visible a set of networks otherwise unseen through the existed knowledge of the spaces we

inhabit. In this sense, maps serve specific interests, and what they hide can acquire the virtue of making visible what they show. This selectivity in the mapping procedure is furthermore responsible for formulating the overall interest of the map, its theme, its purpose, and ultimately its inevitable bias (Gharbieh, Fawaz, 2009). Hence, the illustration would be limited to a picturing of data that à la limite is more telling when lived than when read. It is in this sense that the choice to represent the explanations made (the data collected) in two different sets of codes becomes very important.

Moreover, maps follow different visual types to engage with geopolitics, they neglect as much they include material; as a reflection of the culture and politics that gave rise to them (Gharbieh, Fawaz, 2009).

These maps differ in terms of their “authority” and institutional legitimacy, their “substance” and visual and textual complexity, and their “function” for control or navigation.

For Harley (1989) a definition “for use in communication with the general public” would be “Cartography is the art, science and technology of making maps” (Harely, 1989; 12) that for practicing cartographers’ would be “Cartography is the science and technology of analysing and interpreting geographic relationships, and communicating the results by means of maps” (Harely, 1989; 12). Many may find it astonishing that ‘art’ no longer exists in ‘professional’ cartography. In the present context, however, these signs of “ontological schizophrenia can also be read as reflecting an urgent need to rethink the nature of maps from different perspectives” (Harely, 1989; 12). The question rises as to whether the idea of a progressive science is a myth partly shaped by mappers in the course of their own expert development. I suggest that it has been acknowledged too uncritically by a broader community and by other academics who work with maps.

5.2.1. Mapping, a Tool to Share Knowledge and Power

In his “The Agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Invention,” James Corner differentiates the mechanical competence of tracing from the creative art of mapping. Although seemingly neutral, mapping enables repressed representations to become visible.

According to Corner (1999), “mappings have agency

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because of their analogous character and abstraction” (Corner, 1999; 214). Far from being inactive, mappings are active agents of cultural interference, playing a essential role in the representation of power relations and spatial hierarchies. As a creative practice, mapping causes its most creative effects by discovering realities previously unseen or unimagined (Corner, 1999)

Corner suggests that our concept of space is formed by our contribution with our environments.

Corner is quick to dismiss normal cartographic practices by referring to the fact that, at an early age, we all have an inherent ability to form mental images of our surroundings based on personal experience rather than external influences such as Mercator’s projection. Our mental images or mental maps are constantly fluctuating as we continue to engage or “play” with our surroundings (Corner, 1999: 215216).

“Cartography is a form of knowledge and a form of power” (Harley, 1988: 279) Just as “the historian paints the landscape of the past in the colours of the present’s so the surveyor, whether consciously or otherwise, replicates not just the ‘environment’ in some abstract sense but equally the territorial imperatives of a particular political system” (Harley, 1988: 280). Whether a map is produced under the banner of cartographic science as most official maps have been or whether it is an overt propaganda exercise, it cannot escape participation in the processes by which power is organised. Some of the practical implications of maps may also fall into the category of what Foucault has defined as acts of ‘surveillance’ particularly those linked with warfare, political publicity, boundary making, or the protection of law and order. Foucault is not alone in making the link between power and knowledge. Anthony Giddens (1984), too, in theorising about how public systems have developed ‘embedding’ time and space refers to authoritative resources controlled by the state: “Storage of authoritative resources involves above all the retention and control of information or knowledge.. As a means of surveillance both ‘the collation of information relevant to state controls of

the conduct of its subject population’ and ‘the direct supervision of that conduct”.

What is useful about these thoughts is that they help us to imagine cartographic images in relations of their political influences on the society.

The mere fact that for periods maps have been projected as ‘scientific’ images - and are still placed by theorists’ and’ semio-ticians in that category makes this task more problematic. Dialectical about associations between image and power can’t be excavated with the “procedures used to recover the ‘hard’ topographical knowledge in maps and there is no litmus test of their ideological tendencies.

Maps as ‘knowledge as power’ are discovered here under three headings: the way in which the exercise of power structures the content of maps; and how cartographic communication at a symbolic level can reinforce that exercise through map knowledge” (Handersone, Waterstone, 2009: 132).

• Reading between the Lines

What is actually beyond the representation of a place through the map, into a sharper focus?

Deconstruction is strategies which track the link amid reality and depiction of the map (Harley, 1988). Reality in this case, such as “landscape” or “space” is not something external and given; rather it constitutes of contribution of things: material, objects, images, values, cultural codes, places and maps (Corner, 1999:215). As the philosopher of science Jacob Bronowski deliberately observes, there are no presences to be snapped, no experiences to be unoriginal. “Science is like an art, is not a copy of nature by recreation of it. Then ‘scientific’ maps are a creation not only of “the rules of the order of geometry and reason, but also of the “norms and values of the order of social ... tradition” (Harley, 1988: 289).

Moreover, Foucault anchors texts in socio-political realisms and concepts systems for establishing information of the kind that Derrida loves to pull to pieces. But even so, by joining different ideas on a new terrain, it may be possible to create a scheme of social theory with which we can initiate to question the unseen agendas of cartography.

Such a scheme offers no ‘solution’ to an historical interpretation of the cartographic record, nor a exact

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method or set of systems, but as a broad plan it may help to locate some of the fundamental forces that have driven map-making. From Foucault’s literatures, the key exposure has been the omnipresence of power in all information, even though that power is unseen or implied, counting the specific knowledge encoded in maps and atlases. Derrida’s notion of the “rhetoric city of all texts has been no less a challenge” (Derrida, 1987 cited in Harley, 1992).

It demands a search for image and rhetoric in maps where previously academics had found only measurement and topography. Its essential question is meaningful of Korzybski’s much older dictum “The map is not the territory “but deconstruction goes further to carry subjects can be represents a map place into much sharper focus. Deconstruction urges “us to read between the lines of the map” “in the margins of the text” (Harley, 1992: 3) and through its tropes to notice the silences and paradoxes which can challenge the apparent morality of the image.

In fact, cartographies are only facts inside a precise cultural standpoint to understand how maps, like art, far from being “a see-through opening to the world,” are but “a particular human way of looking at the world.” In succeeding this approach, three threads of argument Harley, developed. One of Foucault’s primary units of examination is the discourse. A discourse has been definite as “a system of possibility for knowledge.” Foucault’s way was to ask, it has been said, what rules allow confident statements to be made; what rules order these declarations; what rules can permit to identify some declarations as true and others as false; what rules can allow the creation of a map, model or classificatory scheme, what rules are exposed when an object of dissertation is modified or transformed ... When sets of rules of these types can be documented, we are trade with a broad creation or dissertation. The rules of mapping are, in any case, influenced by a quite various set of rules, those governing the cultural manufacture of the map. To discover these rules, we have to read between the lines of technical techniques or of the map’s topographic content. They are linked to values, such as those of ethnicity, politics, religion, or social class, and they are also rooted in the mapproducin at larger society. Cartographic discourse functions a double silence to this characteristic of the potentials for map knowledge. In the map itself, social structures are often camouflaged beneath an abstract, instrumental space, or incarcerated in

the coordinates of computer mapping. And in the technical literature of cartography they are also overlooked, nevertheless the fact that they may be as significant as measuring, collecting, or proposing to produce the declarations that cartography sorts about the world and its landscapes. “Such interplay of social and technical rules is a universal feature of cartographic knowledge. In maps it produces the “order” of its features and the “hierarchies of its practices.” In Foucault’s sense the rules may enable us to define an episteme and to trace archaeology of that knowledge through time” (Harley, 1992: 4) Once again, much like ‘the rule of ethnocentrism,’ this hierarchy of space is not an aware act of cartographic picture. Cartography organises its terminology so so that it exemplifies a methodical societal inequality.

The differences of class and power are caused, “reified and legitimated in the map by means of cartographic signs. The rule seems to be the more powerful, the most prominent. Using all the tricks of the cartographic “trade size of symbol, thickness of line, height of lettering, hatching and shading, the addition of colour—we can trace this reinforcing tendency in innumerable maps. We can begin to see how maps, like art, become a mechanism “for defining social relationships, sustaining social rules, and strengthening social values.” (Harely, 1998: 20). Much of the power of the map, as a picturing of societal geography, is that it functions behind a cover of a seemingly neutral science. “It hides and denies its social dimensions at the same time as it legitimates. Yet whichever way we look at it the rules of society will surface. They have ensured that maps are at least as much an image of the social order as they are a measurement of the phenomenal world of objects” (Dodege, 2011: 173) Through this literature review, I want to focus on the contrast between mapping and reality, and then the foci will in the following sections about the power of the map for change which is better tackled in the parts below.

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5.1. Beyond Mapping a Schizophrenic City To get my interview with the Director of OCFTC, Ziad Nasser in his office in Mar Mikhael, Beirut, I asked his secretary for the address. “Do you know the bridge of the old railways that crosses the street, pass it, then drive around 200 meters, there is a florist on your righthand corner, go from there and ask for the Central building, we are in the back” she said, referring to the name of the neighbourhood, a collection of mismatched concrete buildings with flat roofs that sprout like mushrooms from a hillside. When I pressed her for a more precise location, she said suspiciously. “Just say it’s behind the Central Building, Mar Mikhael Station,” she said, in the voice of someone addressing an imbecile.

Offices and hotels in Beirut have addresses and so, supposedly, do private residences. But give a taxi driver the address he’ll stare at you blankly and wait for you to elaborate. Beirutis navigate using landmarks agreed upon by some mysterious consensus (Monroe, 2010). These are subject to an informal hierarchy. State and religious buildings, hospitals and universities come first, followed by parking, banks and drugstores, all the way down to ads, wastebaskets and large gardenia jasmine bushes, then the building which has orange curtains; it is how I direct people to my apartment. Posts are not delivered; those who really need to receive mail can either rent a PO Box or more simply go and collect the post.

In most of the cases the post office calls the person to get the directions of the address.

5.1.1. Beirut has an identity without Names When collecting payments, staffs of the staterun electricity company use a multifaceted mapping system established during the French

Mandate (1920-1946) that identifies each city sector, street and building by a number. Even though no one else uses this system, most street signs still bear numbers instead of names. They are ignored by everyone except baffled tourists, who may find themselves on street corners looking back and forth despairingly between a seemingly random number and a map bearing names that no one has ever heard of.

Prior to Lebanon’s independence in 1943, the streets of Beirut did not have official names, explained Bahi Ghubril, the founder and director of Zawarib, a company makes maps to show informal landmarks and names (Ghubril, 2016). Streets were known for a protruding local family or a distinguishing landmark, but after the independence 1943, a committee was created to assign formal names to the city’s streets. Some, like Sursock Street and Makdisi Street, retained the names of powerful local families. “Several were divided up into segments and assigned multiple names, while small alleyways like mine were never given names at all”, said Ghubril.

Navigation by landmark is not unique to Lebanon, but war, capitalism and the absence of a stable administration and others were improved in the post-war reconstruction.

Following the civil war, the state untied zoning limits and twisted the city over to property developers. Since then, hundreds of buildings, including beautiful Ottoman and French halls, have been torn down to make way for profitable high-rise apartment blocks, with no effort on the part of the state to draw up a coherent city plan. In the nonappearance of an agreed net of streets, there are no addresses; and without addresses, said Ghubril, “the Lebanese GPS relies on the shared memory of the residents .” One long highway in the multicultural Hamra district is formally selected Baalbek Street, but colloquially known as Commodore Street 107

after a cinema that was demolished eras ago.

A chaotic transport hub in the south of the city, where unsteady old minibuses fill up with passengers before bowling enthusiastically across the country, is known just as Cola, after a long-vanished Coca-Cola factory. Ghubril calls these places “phantom landmarks.”

On another hand, for outsiders, knowledge how to navigate each new area is a process like, and as satisfying as, mastering a new language.

The infantile homes of local superstars are overall landmarks, even if they lack unique features. This sort of knowledge is “part of the narrative of being an insider, a true Beiruti,” says Ghubril. “You just have to know.” Occasionally these conventions are attractively subversive, celebrating ordinary citizens instead of the VIPs in whose honour streets are officially named.

In Mar Mikhael, a recently redecorated area previously known for its mechanics’ workshops and now considered by a string of hipsterfriendly bars, it’s common to hear people arranging to meet beside the fat old dog that naps all day on a stretch of pavement outside a nondescript newsagent. When the Mar Mikhael dog goes to the great lair in the sky, persons will no doubt start saying, “I’ll meet you where the fat dog used to be” much to the confusion of tourists. Moreover, the city could be also navigated through reading its war memories through mural writings as a manner of speaking, partisan flags and posters, “Do you know Pierre Gemmayal’s image on the tunnel Naher alKalb ?” The passer-by starts to pick few words, recognize certain expression, to turn them into story-lines, volumes about politics, philosophies and sectarianism. These spatial decisions or posters shaped the city’s fragmented visual scenery and its cultural ethos, not only in the eight muhafazat (provinces), but chiefly within the streets of the capital itself.

The landmarks, hence, can be of all kinds, from

visually impressive structures such as the warscarred Holiday Inn or Kahraba Lubnan (the electricity company with a sign that’s never completely lit up), to popular workshops and eateries less haphazard than the stairway dog, but in similarly strategic places. What’s more, some of these favourite landmarks may have long ago ceased to exist, surviving only as points of reference, such as the old Medina theatre. A few years ago, a Lebanese design firm even introduced the idea of grading the city’s landmarks from A-D, with the latter indicating “dead” or “may be removed at any point”, for things like trees or posters.

• The Pre-history of BMP, Zawarib’s initiatives

When he moved to Beirut in 2005, Bahi Ghubril, a Lebanese brought up in London realised he could not go anywhere without getting lost. “So, I decided to start mapping the streets. I have mapped things since I was a kid from playgrounds to processes I’ve worked on.

Contemporary Beirut had not been mapped since the 1970s and, most prominently, the main points of reference had never been marked.” Ghubril went around each area in the city methodically, from Dahiyeh in the south to Dbayeh on the eastern coast. His first stop, he says, was continuously the public office gathering taxes and fees from local traders, since they would know the designations of all breakthroughs. “Then I continued, asking retailers and people sitting on chairs on the roads directions. Ten years later, envisage how many conversations have fed into the data we have.” Ghubril’s way finding mission soon turned into Zawarib, a company taking its name from the Arabic word for narrow alleyways, it was founded in 2005. The effort has gone through numerous phases, start with projects 108

designed to make navigating the city easier by identifying notable landmarks. The original product was based on what Zawarib calls “points of reference.” These are distinctive landmarks that tourists or passengers can use to orient themselves or find directions.

The purpose of Zawarib is not to build new substructure because it is impossible within an absence of long term strategic study and implementation, instead the goal is to make travel more efficient “it becomes less of a treasure hunt and more about receiving to a place” (Ghubril, 2016). Zawarib has since branched out into more projects, including its well-known city guide. These point out unique and general shops and businesses that are nonetheless often problematic to find.

It has grown to publish all kinds of atlases and maps including coverage of Beirut’s NGOs and its informal bus network . Show a sample of the maps you speak of to give readers who don’t know Zawarib a better way to visualise what you are talking about “That data was already available from the ministry of transportation, but they never thought it would be useful,” Ghubril explains. “We mapped the buses, but then of course, you have to find out exactly where to catch them”. To add, “Addresses are very particular, with detailed references and directions like ‘nearby’, ‘opposite’ and ‘in between’ because roads often have no signs.”

Instead they tend to take creative, often literal, names like “The Road with the Oak Tree”, says Ghubril.

In fact, this way of navigating may be more logical than it first appears. Research says that when individuals need to position themselves, first they start to find landmarks.

They tend to be located at critical navigation points: a turn around an angle, the intersections of different roads. Then, the urban-navigators can link to the landmarks to each other, making

roads to lead them to the right way. Humans function differently: those with a better sense of direction tend to choose the straight path, even if it’s winding and unfamiliar; others with lower location capacity prefer conventional roads finished open areas. Maps, when functioning well, become a delay of our knowledge. Landmarks can also invite the users to see the city’s urban surroundings differently, like the map of Beirut’s scarce green spaces, for instance, or the one where tanks and pointed wire visualise the increasing securitisation of private and public areas.

“It’s about understanding how a city works.

There’s usually a very clear order; you just must comprehend it. In the medinas there’s a hierarchy between commercial and residential streets, and plazas take their names from the activity that goes on there. Once you know this, navigation is not hard.” “Even before the Civil War, Lebanon did not have a proper addressing system of numbers and name of streets” said the marketing director at LibanPost, Ronnie Richa. Also, LibanPost is a private business tasked with managing Lebanon’s postal services. “After the war, of course the situation got worse”. According to Richa, the speed and lack of mistake of development throughout the city has also made the condition difficult.

“Every city now seems to have their own way of identification and numbering the streets”, he said.

This massive barrier to entry has not stopped some groups from trying similar projects.

Figure 17 Zawarib Map Source: Zawarib, 2016

• Digitalising the Informal Mass Transit Network

“Mapping is a tool. Community engagement is the point.” Said Baaklini, then he continued, “maps are political, maps are sociological, maps tell stories, and above all, maps reflect choices: the choice of what you decide to mention in it, and what you leave unsaid” (Baaklini, 2018c).

Within the same spirit as Zawarib, the “Bus Map Project” was launched in summer 2015, grassroots initiative was launched as an alternative local movement and self-organized

109

urban collective to reshape the urban scene of Beirut’s mass transit system in dynamic, creative, innovative and empowering ways.

The socially innovative initiative occurred at the local level in attempts that seek to meet the unsatisfied needs of the Bus Community (riders and drivers) as well as the motorists who are deprived from their “rights” to access a suitable public transport service. Coping with the absence of regulation, the initiative Bus Map Project believed in creating coalitions with different parties in the city, coordination and to crowd source information on the informal bus system; through an appreciative lens that challenges the strict visions of the formal and 110

Byblos (Jbeil)

Greater Beirut Bus & Van Network

6

Nahr Ibrahim

Tabarja

Legend Number/Name LTC/Zantout (Cola to Saida) № 2 (Hamra to Antelias) № 24 (Hamra to Badaro) № 3 (Cola to Chwit) № 4 (Hamra to Haddath) № 6 (Cola to Jbeil) № 5 ( Hamra to Ain Saadeh) № 12 (Hamra to Burj Brajneh)

Maamiltain

№ 15 (Dawra – Ain Mreisseh – Nahr el Mott) № 22 (Dawra to Baabda) № 12 (Hamra to Burj Brajneh) SKR - Sakr (Dawra – Broumana – Bikfaya) M - Matar/Airport Van (Dawra to Airport) № 15 (Cola - Allay - Kmetiyeh) V - Van (Mar Mikhael to Chwaifet)

Transfer to Regional Buses

Stop/Landmark

Jounieh

Kaslik

Beginning/End of Line

3

BEIRUT-TRIPOLI HIGHWAY

Bus Line

Nahr el Kalb

Bikfa

Dbayeh

Beirut Water Front

AUB Manara Ain Mreisse

Ras Beirut

Sporting Stadium

Wardiyeh 4

Hamra

Barbar

Mar Elias

Charles Khoury

Mar Elias

Sakanit el Helou Corniche el Mazraa

LTC 6 15

Qasqas

Arab Uni.

Tareek el Jdeedeh

Barbir

Kuwait Embassy

Ouzai

Source: BMP, 2018

Shiyah

Airport Bridge

SAIDA-BEIRUT HIGHWAY

Fanar

Baabdat

Istirahit Al Sayyad Lebanese University

Broumana

Al Kafa’at University

Beit Meri

Fanar

Bakreef Ain Saadeh

R

Kafaat

Laylakeh

Chacutier Aou (Mansouriyeh

Hazmiyeh

Sacred Heart Hos.

BE

UT

-D

Haddath Traffic Light

Haddath Clocktower

Spanish Embassy Haddath Lebanese Police 4 University Station (Old Saida Lebanese Road) University

Haddath

Ghandour Factory V

5

Kafra

Milad al Saydeh Church (Manouriyeh)

I Hybermarket VER Abou Khalil

AM

AS

CU

Baabdah

Chwaifet LTC

Chmis

IR

Khaldeh Bridge

Saida

RIVER)

Mansouriyeh

BEIRUT

Gallery Karout Semaan Mall

12Burj Barajneh Burj Barajneh

Airport

St. Takla Church

Mkaless 2000 Center

Jisr el Basha

Saydeh Church

Beirut International Airport

Bharsaf

Mikhalles

City Center (Mall)

Haret Hreik

Airport Highway Figure 17 second version of the collective map of BMP M

Source: BMP, 2018

Freeway

Habtoor Mikhalles Roundabout

Mar MkihaelV Church Sfier

Haret Hreik

Zalka NA HR EL M OT T

Jdeideh Rebound Club Square Masaken Al Arman

Dekwaneh Municipality

Mount Lebanon Hospital

Mucharafieh

Ghobeiry Golf Course

Abraj Chevrolet (Alfa)

6

Bouchriyeh

St. Rita Church

Fahed Supermarket

Ghobeiry 6

Khabbaz

Hayek Roundabout

Sin el Fil

Beirut Mall

Ittihad

Dekwaneh

Furn el Chubek

Chatila Roundabout

ALBA

Jisr el Wati

Badaro

Tayouni

Madina Riyadiya

Sioufi

Adlieh

McDonald’s24

Horch

15

SKR

Burj Hammoud

15

Dawra

Peugeot Karm 22 el Zaytoun Jisr Burj Hammoud Stadium el Fiat

Rizk Sassine Hospital Aamiliye Mathaf

Basta

3

Cola

Jnah

Figure 17 first version of the collective map of BMP it was considered as a manifesto the team’s work

Sofil

Burj Ham. Municipality

Zalka Jal el Dib

City Mall (Nahr el Mott)

M

Beirut Remeil River Spinney’s

Sodeco

Dunes Ramlet el Baydah

Achrafieh

Tannous Tower

Armenia Str. EDL Mar Mikhael

Gemmayzeh

Basta Tahta Mosque

Zarif

Verdun

Movenpick

Martyr’s Burj el Murr Square

2

Karakon Druz

2 Antelias

(

Dalieh

Charles Helou

Downtown

Kantari

FransaBank

m

k 14

Qaurantina

Forum Sukleen du Beirut

Beirut Souks

12 24

5

Qureitem

Rawsheh

Biel

Zeituna Bay

S

Antelias (Highway bridge)

Baabda Hospital

S

HI

Melkaret School

GH

Araya Police Station

W

AY

Liban Post Araya 3

22

Chwit

Serail Jordanian Embassy

Allay

15

Kmetiyeh

informal sectors while building collective maps for transit riders. Hence, the platform will widen the circle of participation and create advocacy.

The founder of BMP, Jad Baaklini with background in Media Studies and Human Geography and his co-founder Chadi Faraj with background in Computer Engineering believe that a collective mapping and learning will develop prototypes that captures the imagination and catalyses participation.

According to Baaklini, “to reduce the sense of exclusion, the aim of the platform is to help introduce people who don’t ride the bus to the system and share information among the users as well”.

The collective mapping means to build a broad community of bus riders who are passionate about improving the system through incremental and accumulated effort. That way, every bus rider turns into a bus tracker, then mapper, a story teller and is personally invested in shaping the collective vision of their city. When I met Sara and Sirene during my fieldwork at Cola, these two AUB architecture students took part in BMP’s collective initiative.

“We had never taken the bus before, mainly due to the lack of information. So far, we rode it only twice, but it has completely shifted our misconceptions,” they explain enthusiastically.

Leveraging technologies, such as mobile phones, that are omnipresent in the city to make data and then linking this data to open-data architecture, has the possible to fundamentally transform what is often a closed data lacking transport planning process in Beirut. Overall, this kind of work ensures for those depend on the informal mass transit benefit from the rising technology revolution in transport. Therefore, the definition of public transit mapping the

most common and best understood level of mapping urban mobility systems mentions to collecting spatial data on routes, stops and structure a record of stop names, stop infrastructure, interchanges and route value. They seek to create a complete overview of existing systems and highlight the previously opaque intersection of different systems into one unified urban mobility system.

Hence, BMP in collaboration with other volunteers mapped the informal bus routes by: - Download a GPS tracking map on the personal smartphone (examples: Open GPS Tracker for Android, Open GPX Tracker for iOS, Gaia GPS for Android and iOS, Trails for iOS, etc.)

- Then, get on a bus for a ride at its point of departure.

- Finally, start recording the app, while making to have always signalled in the phone from the beginning to end. After the data collected, the collected information was digitalised into a map, designed by Sergej Schellen who has a background in Political Affairs and a designer in Zawarib.

According to the founders, when the network of the buses is communicated in a clear way, the service will be improved; therefore, a sense of accessibility and inclusivity is created (Baaklini, Faraj, 2017). In this case, “the change truly sticks through its institutionalization into the structure, systems, social norms, shared value, and most of all, culture” (Albrechts, 2011). So, giving people their initial reason and motivation for riding the bus, Bus Map Project hopes that collective mapping can help get rid of the fear and uncertainty surrounding Lebanon’s informal transit system. In turn, mapping the system with diverse others can help open spaces for new perceptions, patterns and behaviours.

At the core of such environment, the interplay between the social exclusion and the deprivation of human needs to access the public transportation is countered by these social initiatives dynamics.

These initiatives are modest, yet it is a step towards a collective change in the society. What is the impact 111

such diverse initiatives have in term of term of social innovation? Is mapping the bus routes and stops a tool for making this system more visible? Will it invite diverse groups to take part in its formation and to go beyond A to B and challenge the culture of transport in the city?

5.2. Collective Action to Promote the Informal Bus System “For me, Bus Map Project is a chance to try and live out some principles based on a few annoyances with how activism or even politics is understood and done in Lebanon. It is small-scale rather than utopian; it is modest rather than pretending to be authoritative or definitive; it constantly tries to bring together and foreground other people rather than hog the spotlight and claim all glory; it has a beginning, middle and end rather than seeking to perpetuate our role and relevance with permanent programming; but most importantly, it takes ordinary emergent phenomena as fundamentally good, even when they are imperfect or even problematic, there is something good and wise in what people come up with together over time. In this way, Bus Map Project for me is a way to be extremely practical while also holding fast to extremely radical outlooks—radical for our time and context. And as we transition into the next phase as a riders’ rights organization, I hope that we keep this spirit alive.” Said Baaklini when I asked him for a final reflection about the project.

5.2.1. Emergence of Bus Map Project to Reshape the Debate about the Bus System The Bus Map Project started by an online manifesto “Joud Bel Mawjoud” ‫دوجوملاب_دوج‬ in English “let’s work with what we have,” and “let’s make the system more legible and accessible”. Therefore, the aim is to improve

the complicated transport sector through different strategies. Starting by working on what should be done on the system itself by make it more inclusive while changing the culture of perception “the country doesn’t have a public transport”, to create accessibility for different commuters. To build momentum for the initiative, Jad and Chadi, focused their approach on strategically aping up the appeal of buses in a car-lovers’ city by turning them into design and culture objects. Using Social Media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to spread the word, Bus Map Project has organized several ‘hipsterfriendly’ events including a photography day where attendees documented buses on film (or their iPhone’s photo stream). Through such tactics, the campaign has grown into a network of supporters, allies and contributors.

• Beyond a Collective Mapping, Creating a Bus Community The story of Jad started when he found himself questioning the reason behind the chaos in this sector; thus, he started researching about the sector problems, aiming to achieve “something” for this sector (Baaklini, 2018a). Baaklini relies on public transport to commute in the city; hence, he knows the sector very well. As Deleuzean’s tracing entails looking back in a systematic manner. It is an investigation concerned with path-dependencies, transformations and ruptures, exploring how elements and processes respond (Hillier, 2005).

“Tracing how did something come to be? Involves asking questions such as what knowledge, desires, and emotions drove this situation? And what is the relations existed between which actors? What games of power played between actors and so on...?” (Hillier, 2005) As such, Jad understood the reasons of failures behind the public transport. He continued searching, to get inspired by the snowball approach of Rotaract’s “Bus Stops Project”2007, an initiative aimed to build seven bus shelters but rejected to map them or deliver information on the 112

buses they served (Baaklini, 2016). “According to project manager Jean-Marc Adaimi, the Rotaract “Bus Stop Project” was intended to “serve the community” by addressing actual needs, and “not just setting a goal and speaking about it.” This meant repairing the country’s bus network as it is, even if it does not always “follow certain criteria,” as he put it, revealing a mix of practicality and far-sightedness to the project that’s not always seen in deliberations of public transport in Lebanon.”

Capturing routes on a transport industry that does not follow the same roads every day or have a structured schedule is a challenge. But this is an even greater hurdle in a city where many are unaware of or refuse to acknowledge the informally run industry’s place in the city’s public transport network.

Roteract claimed that the act of plotting the roads on the maps would mean acknowledging the services and thus legitimising the service to a degree exactly what the Bus Stops Project was frightened of and what Bus Map Project now aims to do (Baaklini, 2016). Baaklini emptied statistics on the public transport use belie a profounder issue: an official unwillingness to admit what is perceived as an informal system.

Informally run systems rarely have an easy time of captivating the hearts of transport agencies. The lack of fixed routes, stops, and schedules give the sector an air of chaos that casts them in an unfavourable light, especially in the bureaucratic and top-down eyes of the government. In reaction to the absence of the buses in Beirut’s transport discussion has made it difficult to attract volunteers, and Bus Map Project has worked hard to raise awareness amongst the public before they can even attempt a complete map. According to Jad, “One of our biggest challenges has been to mobilise volunteers to track the buses with us,

using basic GPS tracking apps already available on iPhone and Android. When we initially started, we focused on thudding up support, but we rapidly felt that our outreach plan would be better bolstered by making a prototype map of the route data we pieced together ourselves” (Baaklini, 2018a). The research has ended by meeting Chadi in spring 2015, when Baaklini was writing an article on small-scale transportation initiatives in Lebanon. As mentioned previously, Chadi had already developed in 2008 an application called Lebanon Buses [5]as a startup, at a time when the issue of public transport in Beirut was simply not addressed. During that initial meeting, Jad and Chadi agreed on working together, and so they began a project with the aim of raising consciousness of existing transit options by mapping van and bus routes (Faraj, 2018a). Specifically, they sharpened the focus of the initiative to make the existing system more legible and attractive to nonusers. Launching a grassroots’ awareness-raising and data-collecting movement has been another aim as well, to fill the gap of knowledge about this system through bottom-up, collective datacollection to be able to improve it in the future.

To build bridges between riders, service providers and local authorities and promote sustainable and eco-friendly practices in our society (Baaklini, Faraj, 2018a).

On the short/medium term, BMP will focus on helping non-users to understand the transport system. On the long-term vision, it will build up an association of bus riders who are conscious of and devoted to fight for the rights of the riders (Baaklini, Faraj, 2018a). The “Rights of the Riders” to be an NGO has been rejected twice from the government for many technical reasons. According to Abdel Hafiz EL-Kayssi the Director General of Land and Maritime Transport at Ministry of Public Works and Transport [6](MoT), what was submitted to the ministry as goals and activities of the NGO surpass the ministries legal authorities. In addition, none of 113

the NGO representatives have a background in transportation; thus, it is recommended to recheck the submitted documents to get accepted (Al-Kayssi, 2018). Actually, after I rechecked what has been submitted, the problem was in the Arabic expressions, probably the group didn’t express themselves well. Besides, according to Al-Kayssi, I would fit to be a representative of the NGO since I am a planner and I have knowledge in transport.

This statement drove me to think of how these two-young people are presenting themselves.

For instance, in the meeting with member council of Beirut, Chadi introduced himself as a “bus rider” and not an engineer. Unfortunately, in the Lebanese context perception and titles do matter. On another hand, the team got an approval from the Ministry of Environment (MoE) and training sessions from Lebanon Support “Enabling Youth Led Initiatives” project, funded by the Embassy of Switzerland to help them to organize themselves as an NGO. On the other hand, Lebanon Buses along with Bus Map Project will develop itself from being an online portal that gives access to transmit data usually providing by governments or service operators to encourage public to use public transport, to be a social entrepreneurship.

In turn, more riders mean more investment, catalysing improvements that in turn attract more users of public transport explains Jad.

be modern, not like what we have,” they justify their support by stigmatizing existing populations.

Moreover, fear is another hurdle. In fact, it might be the bigger test than the stigma. There’s the fear of the unknown and unintelligible, which is what mapping would help alleviate, but there is also the fear of strangers, and the related and highly gendered fear of pestering or violence (Baaklini, 2016). For instance, many women are afraid to ride the bus because they are told to be afraid. Many are afraid because they’ve had bad involvements. This is a sensitive subject, because these hazards are often inflated and mixed up with racist, classist and patriarchal ideas. Indeed, warning women about taking the bus is often just another way to control them. But this does not mean that civic space in general does not incline to be hostile to the free movement of women. This is a Lebanese problem and a global one as well. This raises questions of safety, rider’s rights, and operator tasks. It also points to a very basic paradox: why is this system so invisible to so many people in Beirut? Therefore, the initiatives came up with an idea to invite the riders to share stories on their blogs “busmap.me” about their experiences during the trips. Buses in Lebanon are to their own, there is no rule or government intervention, so no salaries are given and everything monetary is self-earned by the drivers. The network system is so invisible in the city that people get shocked to hear there are even buses. That’s why circumstances in the bus aren’t always clean or Beyond the collective mapping, BMP is facing prepared and everything is very confusing. the “stigma” which footraces to overcome when public transportation in Lebanon. According to BMP, the analysis of the transit system For instance, the stigma is a priority in the can be passable when made from outside the campaigns of BMP. It is essential to change the system. Impressions met from the sidewalk, or from perception to this system to benefit the sector being fixed in a car behind a bus, or from secondas well as to attract new riders. However, the hand stories and civic wisdom, can be useful to effort to overcome the undesirable images a certain extent. Yet only the lived experience of of the bus ends up by strengthening those regular ridership can truly form dependable ideas images. When activists say that “the bus can about the scheme, and the people and places that 114

establish it. Sometimes, positive ideas are formed that challenges the prejudices of the group, as car drivers, or as people who only ride ‘proper’ buses in other countries. Other times, the collection is faced with the full truth of the discriminations that keep the bus system consecutively.

Finally, Bus Map Project was conceived as a modest, small-scale grassroots initiative to fill the gaps between state neglect and policyoriented advocacy. The team chose a practical approach that strategically set aside the twin issues of rights and demands, focuses on the current bus system as it exists today, without quick judgment or dismissal because the protransit campaigns done before focused too abundant on the past (e.g. the state’s neglect of public transport) or too much on the upcoming (e.g. a desired public transport system) (Baaklini, Faraj, 2018a). Finally, to make sense of and navigating the city, mapping is used as a tool to avoid the state overall, “with or without a president, with or without a parliament, with or without a responsive Ministry of Public Works & Transport because it is impossible to wait for the perfect solutions from the state” (Faraj, 2018).

• Sharing Knowledge to Mobilise a Wider Bus Community (workshops, discussions, etc.)

Since 2015, the team is working on empowering the bus community through creating many coalitions, participating in workshops or in competitions, or simply do interviews.

The group participated in SwitchMed Programme which gave them the technical and organizational support for the development of the project, allowing them to move from an idea to an impact story. In addition, their initiative was presented to an international audience during SwitchMed Connect 2016; in

which that clearly show that grassroots solutions are being built. To add, a Collective Photo Action synchronised by the social media platform and photography tool FRAME Beirut, and an associated print map of major bus and van routes in Beirut.

With a network of friends and associates, the team has also occupied part in meetings in a wide variety of subject areas (e.g. local governance, grassroots design, rural tourism, mobile technology, etc.), to help attach their creativity and the ideas behind it with other vital discussions in and around the city. Moreover, the team each month prepares a trip to Lebanese villages by taking the buses, to get familiar with the city and plan and to map the roads. On February, BMP presented their ongoing collaboration with H2 Eco Design at all three of Notre Dame University (NDU) campuses (Zouk, North, and Chouf) and received very good feedback from students and faculty. In between, BMP managed to take part in Beirut Design Week’s Open House on February and June 2018; besides, the team did a few media interviews regarding their projects. Finally, on the 3rd of March, the team won the first prize of Urb-Hackathon 2018 under the name of “Detox Beirut – Beirut Rah Tondaf” for their project “Smarter Bus”. “Lebanon buses” was granted six-month incubation for their project. In this same spirit, April was the month when a important milestone for informal transport in the Middle East and North Africa was set. The team had the pleasure to be invited by Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) to take part in their MENA region’s civil society allocation and attend UITP’s MENA Transport Congress, the first was last year in Cairo and the second in Dubai, where the team had the chance to discuss the informal public transport practices, and a working group on informal transport was inaugurated for the first time. Under the theme of Pioneering for Customer Happiness, the congress emphasised the concept of Mobility-as-a-Service.

Moreover, one of very first of BMP’s 115

partnerships was with students in Lebanese International University (LIU) Beirut, who made some truly unique representations of routes they’re familiar with. The student worked with the first draft of the map. The purpose of such workshop was “to create maps just like us” said Baaklini, I added, so we need to make maps just like our streets, a true reflection of our schizophrenic city. Then Faraj Added, “we didn’t want to design maps that looks professional as the tube map we are working with informality, a map well adapted to our local context since being professional is like relying on stability of stops and stations that isn’t available in Lebanon”, Then they ended the covnerstation by “it is the true reflection of what we are living, so let’s not try to beauty the situation” (Baaklini, Faraj, 2018c). .

5.4.2. Crossing the Mosaic Borders, by Using the Map as a Tool to Stitch Beirut “It is a routine from war, besides the Green Line physically is not there, but in our attitude is embedded” replied the service driver on our discussion about the sectarian separation on our way from Barbir, Cola to our meeting in Beirut, he continued “I only drive on this route, I don’t go the East and they don’t come to our areas”. What he meant by “they” are the Christians living in the Eastern part.

Through mapping the informal bus routes, some realities about being mobile in Beirut were uncovered, seen and unfolded the potentials in remaking territories. “Digitalising the bus routes is a way to stitch the city together” said Baaklini; however, one has to read first what is in between the lines of the map of the bus routes, to reveal the hidden realities of the city; a mirror of the sociospatial and political divisions. Second, the map can

reveal that the current bus network is a way to restore conviviality in Beirut, through a cultural exchange, interactions at the intersections and so forth.

• Reading a Sectarian and Territorial Divisions Reading in between the lines, the territorial and sectarian divisions are found because of fear for rejection, to live together, to lose the political power over communities. In one of my interviews with one of the state bodies, he said “Kell dik aalla mazbelto sayyah” an Arabic expression means that in Lebanon each party exercises its power on its region or community.

The fact is that such power affects the citizens’ daily life practices and behaviour (Monroe, 2010) For instance, the Lebanese are capable of being unkind and unaware, horrible and cruel, fearful and conventional to certain other groups (Lebanese or non-Lebanese). Mobility done this urban space, for these “ordinary doctors of the city” as de Certeau called them, was an experience beyond pure wave, an exercise in something more than traveling from point A to point B. Therefore, mapping the city was in a way essential to stitch a highly differentiated political city. Most perceive that talking about maps as being political is because the situation there is political . According to Baaklini, “we would be suggesting is that transit maps might seem more mundane, but they also represent political realities. And the punch line of all of this is that: if we agree that maps are political, that means maps are never 100% “done” they are “freeze frames” of a agreement around an end” (Baaklini, 2018c).

For instance, Mona Harb points out, in many ways, that Beirut suburbs such as the Al116

Dahiya or Tareek el Jdideh neighbourhoods are unexceptional, for, they are “just other Beirut neighbourhoods managed by a sect-based party-political actor. But the fear some Beirutis have about parts of the city other than their own isn’t shaped only through perceptions.

Involvements of the civil war hard-boiled lines of sect, both terrestrial and psychic. Beirutis were terrorized by these limits. Checkpoints became as terrifying, at some instants, as the bombing, shooting, and shelling. To be caught on the wrong side of these borders, abruptly, without warning, could result in being attacked or killed. And, more than a decade following the cessation of war, political ferocity returned as a quotidian danger, and a prevailing social condition. De facto, the civil war ended twentyeight years ago, but it is not accurate to speak of the war in the past tense, because the “ethnographic present” is still in the everyday life of the individuals. The public interplanetary had once again developed a battlefield, albeit to a different degree. Bangs tore up vehicles, streets, buildings, and everyday life was seized by fear of when the next bomb would go off and where. For instance, during the summer war 2006, when the Israeli war began, at its full-scale, drove Lebanese in Beirut and beyond back to the patterns they had mapped decades before: flight, seeking shelter, and misery (Monroe, 2010).

to or through certain parts; it is viewed done a specific lens: the historical and current reality and threat of violent conflict and attack. In the context of this violence, because it takes place in civic space, the symmetry of ‘home/security’ and ‘nothome/danger’ strengthens.

What’s more, as Pradeep Jegnathan writes, it is the anticipation of violence itself that arranges the everyday. As a non-native neighbourhood of the city, and one who had not lived through the war, the cartographies I illustrated of the city were quite discrete from those of a Beiruti.

Hence, it is needed to reshape the dissertation of perceiving the city as one object and not as separated territories according to the sectarian communities. On the other hand, the space of Beirut is mapped not only by sect, but also by national identity, politics and possessions which have historically been profoundly connected to relations with and understandings of nonLebanese. As I described in the previous chapters, politics and sect come together in Lebanon as, spiritual sect has historically served as the basis for political identity and representation. State Map 6: Overlapping the bus map informal routes with the sectarian-territorial divisions Source: Author, 2018

Similarly, the aim of Bus Map Project through the map is to make the scheme more transparent as a way to reshape the perception of the bus system as to remove the uncertainty that the system “does not exist, it is not consistent and unsafe” (Faraj, 2018). However, the “uncertainty” is reflected on the broader scale on being mobile in Beirut by the “unfamiliarity”.

It makes persons restriction in their familiar neighbours and takes the excellent not to travel 117

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institutions continue to be under the helm of individuals with links to elite families from the different sectarian communities, and the state’s allocation of welfare resources, rather than being distributed based on need, is tied to both the sectarian supply in the country and to the rewarding of political activism that emerges from sectarian-based political groups. In short, sectarian identity residues salient in substances of politics, civic life, and even livelihood, as connections to and building networks.

In many Beirut’s neighbourhoods, visible procedures of extra state security whereby inhabitants (mostly male) appoint themselves guardians of their politically sectarian neighbourhood, reconstructed generally as a sectarian territory, and question those perceived to be outsiders about their reason for being in the neighbourhood. When I was going to my meeting with the vice president of al-Dahiya Municipality Union, everyone was telling me “don’t go, it is unsafe”, “is it necessarily to go there?” and “don’t go by service, go by car and lock it, it is safer”. But, here I am, I survived even though I crossed the boundaries.

• Reading Beirut as One City What are the extents of creating an appropriate map for informal system? Can the collective mapping of BMP help spark new ways of thinking about public transit in Beirut? The Bus Map Project launched their second prototype bus map of Greater Beirut and the alpha version of their online transit platform BusMap.me, a participative tool that seeks to crowd-source, clarify and spread information about the people, places, voices and traces of Lebanon’s transit system.

The power of the shaped map is beyond showing

that the current system does exist. Actually, it does not matter if it is state owned or privately started since the bus system is serving a certain category of people. In this case, the map is a tool, to reveal realities, as a creative practice to shed light on the sectarian divisions that the Lebanese are living.

Commuting in this belongs to an huge range of spatio-temporal contexts within which multiple rhythms are produced and interweave. Then, the rhythms of commuting are part of the routines, scripts that make up quotidian life. Accordingly, commuting is akin to the ambiguities inherent in other mundane does that produce movement and stasis, conform to powerful chronological and spatial regulation but seek certain autonomy, and find a balance between predictability and possibility. In terms of travelling, rhythms can smoothen the virtual borders, create connectivity and enablement, rather than, disconnection, social exclusion and quietness (Edensor, 2011).

To commute from my home in Beirut to Cola, the transportation hub, I referred to the BMP’s map to get directions. I had to change the bus twice; meanwhile, waiting for the buses, the nodes of intersection were a place of interaction with a high capacity of flows. The concept of intersections and nodes in this case is an interaction of two or more linear systems as information, roads where flows happen along these systems. Within physical constraints, the nodes of intersections operate within this space; thus, social interactions occur in certain of spaces where movement is at a pedestrian scale (Lynch, 1999). According to Jad, “at the intersections of buses, the passengers not only change the buses, but also the cultural exchange happens while encountering new environment” (Baaklini, 2018).

Therefore, the public transit forces all people of all kinds to interact, even passively, through their use of the transport system. On the subway, on a light-rail car, or on the bus, everyone is the 119

different: no matter where we come from, no substance what we do, no matter who we are, we are all together crowded onto this moving vehicle that is serving as our shared chariot to our destinations, no matter how different those destinations may be. Moreover, people are more accepting, more open to new ideas and viewpoints when they are forced to interrelate, to see the humanity in and share involvements with those who are unlike them. In a good city, this interaction happens on public transit, where people from all walks of life, from a diversity of backgrounds and thought, come together to move across the streets. If public transit is done right, it could be inclusive and inviting. When transportation is the best method of travel within a city, it also develops the best method to fight hatred and prejudice: one of the ways public transports could decrease interchange barriers by transporting services and modes together in one shared social space, it creates awareness, it creates empathy, and it creates serendipity.

Finally, when Corner goes on to explain that time and space is also very complex components of mapping our surroundings. I find this especially relevant today, as the use of an online platform by Bus Map Project to share the mapped routes and encourage others to map with them could allow our perception of distance and space to dissolve since access to information and people has become infinite.

In this sense, the map could be a way to live “without boundaries”.

5.3.

Conclusion: how socially innovative is Bus Map Project?

My empirical research especially the following up interviews from December 2017 until today with the founders of the Bus Map Project clearly showed me that these actors never talk in terms of social innovation or from a theoretical perspective and they even sometimes down play the concept.

Indeed, BMP is an interesting, new and fresh grassroots initiative, speaking about promoting and exposing the bus system to make it more inclusive.

At the core of the interplay between the dynamics of social innovation exclusion and the deprivation of human needs, which are the countered by SI dynamics; SI dynamics in the case of Beirut include reactions to deprivation and exclusion from the right to access to public transport. To overcome the situation of exclusion in the transport, Bus Map Project has emerged with other initiatives in attempt to create structural change in the city.

In that way, BMP’s work at least since the departure of its foundation in summer 2015, the dynamics of these initiatives does not fit well with the definition and dimensions of Social Innovation in chapter 2: i) meeting the alienated needs of the inhabitants, as already mentioned before, that the needs are not just materials, but relate to the sphere of identity, recognition and equal opportunity. The mechanisms to make the bus system more socially inclusive, was through mapping the informal route to unfold the reality behind the buses, as a way to make the system more formal, transparent, there is divisions of lines and so forth. Besides, BM initiated many activities such as workshops, to mobilise the society and to reshape the debate about the system through sharing stories. Because the initiative’s focus is to seek the community, to reshape the culture and the perception,they were broadening their field of interventions and didn’t put efforts on the bus system. Besides, the production of the map or an app didn’t trigger 120

Notes:

Time: Path-dependency: the state follow the western patterns in creating a car dependent city. In addition, the Lebanese state is confescionalism ,top-down approach to policy, a traditional patrinalistic state based on power shared formula which created territorial divisions and sectarian communities.

any effects not only in socio-economics terms, but also in terms change the modalities of governance in a direction of making more inclusivity and democratic practices. Then, ii) BMP didn’t improve the dialogue between the bus system, society and state in respect to the car system, and didn’t iii) reinforce the autonomy of the marginalised group.

In terms, SI should create a transport justice within the system first in order to achieve broader justice on the city level (Table 5.2.)

References: - Abdelaal A., Hegazy A., Hegazy M. and Khalaffallah Y. (2017) “How Can Transit Mapping Contribute to Achieving Adequate Urban Mobility? The Case of Greater Cairo Regioanal (GCR)” Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Egypt Office - Baaklini J., Faraj C. (2018a) interview - Baaklini J., Faraj C. (2018b) interview - Baaklini J., Faraj C. (2018c) interview - Baaklini J (2018a) interview - Baaklini J. (2018c) interview - Corner, J. (1999) “The agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Intervention” in Denis Cosgrove (ed.) Mappings, Reaktion Books, London, 1999, p. 231-252 - Harb, M. (2016) “Power 2 Youth, Cities and Political Change: How Young Activists in Beirut Bred an Urban Social Movement” Working Paper No. 20 - September 2016 Cities and Political Change - Monroe, Kristin V. (2011), “Being Mobile in Beirut”, in City and Society, Vol. 23, No. 1 (June), p. 91-111 - Monroe, Kristin V. (2011), “The Insecure City”, - UITP (International Association of Public Transport) (2010) “Public transport in Sub Saharan Africa. Trans-Africa Consortium” Available at http://www.uitp.org/sites/default/ files/cck-focus-papers-files/Transafrica_UITP_ UATP_PublicTransport_in_SubSaharan_ Africa_2008.pdf (Accessed on June 2018) - Williams, S., White A., Waiganjo P., Orwa D. and Klopp J. (2015) “The Digital Matatu Project: Using Cell Phones to Create an Open Source Data for Nairobi’s Semi-Formal Bus System.”

Journal of Transport Geography 49 (December): 39–51. doi: 10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2015.10.005.

- Mutongi, K. (2006) “Thugs or entrepreneurs: perceptions of ‘Matatu’

Space: Territorial Specificity. The strategies followed by the state lead Beirut to be privatised, deprived from public spaces, transport services. the city is facing transportation crisis due to the high congestion, a quasi-present public transport which serve 1.7% of the population.

Social Exclusion Dynamics: - Access to public transport due to being perceived as the system does not exist and if it does it exist, it is not safe, reliable and communicated.

Thus, there is no value to rely on the bus which lead the citizens to rely on the car.

Social Economy initiatives: Mobilisation of Resources to overcome exclusionary processes (How?): Create and participate in workshops and Competitions, as UITP, OEA conference Encourage non-riders to take the bus and share their ride stories on BMP blog, or to track the bus

Visions and Intentions: promote and reshape the debates of the bus system through mapping to make it more transparent

Human Needs: Need to have access to public services, one of them is adequate public transport (formal system, unlike the current operational one) Dynamics of civil society: - Cooperating with other initiatives in attempts to work together for the sector.

- Creating some coalitions with academics, professionals and experts

Culture and identity building: absence of culture of public transport, The car is related to social status

Social Innovation: Turning exclusion mechanisms into more inclusionary strategies and processes Satisfaction of human needs: Change in Social relations: Empowerment:

Reordering of domains of action between state, market and civil society:

Diagram 5: Dynamics of Social Innovation through the case of BMP Source: Author, 2018

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operators in Nairobi, 1970 to the present” Afr. J. Int. Afr. Inst. 76 (4), 549–568 - Harley J. (1988): ‘Silences and Secrecy- The Hidden Agenda of Cartography in Early Modern Europe’, Imago Mundi, Vol. 40, p. 57-76, Downloaded from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1151014 on 25th December, 2012 - Harley, J. (1989): ‘Deconstructing the Map’, Cartographica, Vol. 26, NO. 2, pp. 1-20.

Heffernan, M. (2002): ‘The Politics of the Map in the Early Twentieth Century’, Cartography and Geographic Information Science, Vol. 29, No. 3, pp.

207-226 - Harley, J. (1988): ‘Maps, Knowledge and Power’, in D. Cosgrove et al (eds), The Iconography of Landscape – Essays on the Symbolic Representation, Design and Use of Past Environments, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 277-312

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Chapter 6

Conclusion and Recommendations

Figure 20: will the omni-present bus system remain an Utopia project?

Source: Bus Map Project, 2016 Location: Byblos Highway

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6.1. Conclusion This research examined mobility from social and bottom-up perspectives in the unstable context of Beirut, that favoured the private vehicles over the re-establishment of public transport. The research addressed social injustice in relation to urban mobility, and the role of informal transit transport and local initiatives in framing new debates about the informal public transport system and network.

To change the culture of perceptions to of the system and create accessibility for different commuters, the core of SI initiatives in this research was to respond the production of transport injustice in Beirut; which implied innovative thoughts and creative practices to deal with the fallout spiralling crisis and to reduce the traffic congestion.

In reaction to “we” Lebanese being deprived from access to the rights in the city and oppressed by the situation, my research examined, through three interrelated objectives whether the social innovative initiatives could turn exclusion mechanisms into more inclusionary strategies: • First, to satisfy human needs as remaining unconsidered or unsatisfied by the state • Second, to increase or enable variety of social groups to access rights, and therefore enhancing their human capabilities; thereby, empowering particular social groups.

• Third, to contribute to change social relations and power structure within the community, but also between local groups and external actors, especially to change the modalities of governance in the direction of more inclusive and democratic practices and the pursuit of multi-scalar political participation systems (Swyngedow, Moulaert, 2010).

To illustrate, “social injustice widened the already existed gaps between the rich and the poor, between the empowered and disempowered, between those who couldn’t any longer think about chasing new needs and those who did not have the means to satisfy even the most basic needs” (Swyngedow, Moulaert, 2010). Then, “SI is about transformation of institutions, overthrowing

oppressive structure with power, collective agency to address non-satisfied needs, and building of empowering social relations from the bottomup”(Moulaert, Van Dyck, 2010: 466). One could think about changing the world while asking which world to change and for whom. Through an inquiry into SI, I was looking at previous cases, both at what was studied and how it was done, as to verify the truth about socially accepted relevance of answering the satisfaction of non-revealed needs, transformation of social relation while empowering the population and communities. At the local level, SI emerged in reaction of various factors as exclusion from access to services, lack of opportunities, rights and recognition, all these range at the social exclusion dynamics which are not synonymous with the state interventions. But, innovative processes could also arise in response to institutional governance failures such as decline of social and cultural services, reduction of civil rights and downsizing democracy.

purpose of informality was the redistribution of social goods and opportunities when the state created social injustice in the distribution of services or through the decisions which lead socio-spatial segregation.

Informal practices in this research were described as social movements, organised and territorial based movements for individuals who were striving for social transformation and change. Hence, informality created a situation for individuals to belong, to work and to participate in the urban life. Such practices were considered resilient, self-managed as social entrepreneurship which, established a new social network in innovative way to the city. However, for an outside observer, these practices appeared as chaotic, lacked any political meaning, and as illegal encroachments, and were justified on moral grounds as a way to survive. However, these were considered practical solutions for the failures of the state. Besides, any form of informal practices is nothing than a mirror of the image of appropriation.

In this research, the production of social injustice was examined through the lens of injustice in the area of transport. In fact, mobility is vital to the survival and development of the urban life, and within the absence of planned public transport, informal alternatives as minibuses, motorbikes have spread across many cities to meet the demand. Mobility was assessed as it goes beyond the everyday urban life, as connecting an individual from point A to B (from or to residence, work, leisure and wellbeing) as establishing spatial connectivity within the city, but also it created socialites, knowledge and shared culture. However, when it came to everyday practices of mobility in an unstable context, weak planning system, marketled development and so forth, mobility caused the marginalisation of some people and their adaptation was through creative strategies to ensure their participation to mobility within the city.

To reshape the perception of the informal practices as gap-fillers for the state’s failures, SI emerged at the local level, as social movements to encourage people to switch to sustainable mode of transport, such as using the existing bus system. The dynamics of this SI was to map the existing system to create a broader community of bus riders and to reshape the perception towards the informal transport. In this case, the map was an instrument for the initiatives to legitimise the appropriation of the bus routes as they exist. This exploration of the theoretical framework was underpinned by a review of Beirut’s mobility history, the impact of different rulers across various periods and the demise of the civil war on transportation.

This approach opened up to the question of spatial justice in transport within unstable urban contexts and to consider the dynamics between the relation of space and time, and the implications on social practices resulting with exclusion or integration of certain actors who are benefiting from them.

Therefore, mobilisation of deprived social groups in this research was evaluated through informal practices, as an everyday form of resistance. The

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This review highlighted the preference of the private automobile over public transport even before the outbreak of the war, and to some extent this is associated with the consociational nature of the government, which tends to overlook secular initiatives to the benefit of sectarian ones. After the war, and with perpetual instability, mobility was negotiated and compromised the mobility of the less-privileged, and resulted in different spatial experiences within Beirut. Informal public transport then filled the gap for a certain segment of the society.

This research revealed another facet of

Beirut’s urban context through the informal mobility of buses as carriers of urbanites from various communities living in a consociational government marked by instability and the predominance of politico-sectarianism for the provision of public goods, and not necessarily socio-economic class and ethnic belonging. Informal public transport in Beirut and its characteristics were presented, along with how it functioned in parallel to the state operated public transport, with its reduced fleet of 11 buses operating on selected routes. In this context, the informal public transport system is buttressed by various politicosectarian affiliations and falls in a prisoners’ dilemma, while trying to provide a public good. This exploration helped to clarify the micro-cultures existing within the system, and their presence defined that the informal transport practices were innovative to a certain extent, yet they reproduced the image of a sectarian divided society.

The stories about experiences of moving around Beirut that I traced in this research made it clear that the mobility and spatial access to services or opportunities produced an uneven urban citizenship. It emphasised how Sectarianism and Clientalism has configured, shaped and divided the city’s spaces and places. Sectarian difference was one lens to understand the social constitution of space. In addition, for Beirutis and non-residents in Beirut, they framed the lack of road safety and arena of mobility was because of an ill-functional sate. For instance, the weak enforcement of state regulations resulted in creating chaos on the roads as many practices bypassed the laws, such as, the red plate being used for more than one van; these strategies had riddled the state with corruption.

During the research, I found that the constellation of experiences created the urban public realm characterised by dissatisfaction, dynamism and effervescence. The Omni-present corruption among the power holders, the private take-over of public space, and an inefficient state left the citizens to fend for them prevailed in the stories about mobility experiences in Beirut. Through these stories were not only criticisms, but also people’s disaffection with a system of governance and geo-political landscape that rendered as being an “insecure state”. Amidst the fractious politics of the country, it remained to see how alternative initiatives took a place in Beirut

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to reshape not only the debate about the informal transport, but also on the perception towards the city through mapping the system.

New kinds of evidence are emerging to inform the state institutions to plan and work with the existing as opportunity for better solutions, rather than to be against them. BMP indeed challenged the approach to transport infrastructure, using multimethods approaches that combined mobile tracking and a map to reveal how the informal transport was woven into the urban fabric. It highlighted how the operational bus system functions in the city.

However, they did not achieve the three interrelated object of SI paradigm.

Through studying BMP in relation to SI and transport that did not create any impact on making the system inclusive (satisfaction of the basic needs), create internal justice in the bus system (empowering the dispossessed) and it did not have an impact on broader society since social justice wasn’t achieved on the bus system first (establishes new relations). Hence, the young activists’ reactions do not make any structural difference in the society.

However, BMP narrated on the informal public transport reflects varied states of mobility and social justice, ranging between over-coming war-time divides, to reflections of it. This variation is highly dependent on the location within Beirut and the connected areas, and the operators of the lines.

Feelings of safety that had to do with the city’s political sectarian territorialisation, as marked by a multi-layered temporality of conflict comprising the past, the present, and the anticipated future, emerged in stories people told about which routes they and their children would and would not take.

Mobility, as I have illustrated in the research, played a critical role in differentiating residents from one another not just by class and status but also by political affiliation. Nevertheless, mobility is seen as a civic right, which enabled spatial justice in the city.

BMP reflected on the advantages and disadvantages of the informal system, and emphasized on the crucial role of the state in coordinating public transport, and highlighting the endemic features in Beirut’s case, characterised by a micro-culture prioritising social values, and dynamism reflecting the system’s resilience in the

face of instability. The interview with the founders of the Bus Map Project revealed insights that require further investigation in terms of defining mobility in a post-conflict context and its reflection of spatial justice in a politically charged, unstable context. The self-regulating system that is capable of responding to riders’ demands, the distribution of routes and gaps in the network, and validation of rider profiles in terms of encounter and integration across war-time divides, are all subjects for further research.

6.2. Recommendations to Look Forwards What I would recommend for short tem projects, is that it is necessary to focus on informal transport as an actually existing solution opening up possibilities to think about mobility, and by extension the city itself. In the case of Beirut, the omnipresent bus system is regulated; works well and fills the gaps in public transport. However, the system could work better when there is an enabling infrastructure that organises vehicles and improves passengers way finding. What I mean by this is that the current system operates on defined routes for defined passengers; it has an internal operational system well organised, such as the division of tasks. The system is, also, legitimised somehow since the drivers should have a license and the vehicles should be registered and have red plates. In that sense, the informal practices seen as informal are a private-public hybrid organisation since the state does exercise some legitimacy to some extent on the system.

Hence, transportation facilitators should be introduced to the system by the state to upgrade the current informal transport. To illustrate, the state can cooperate with the private operators of the buses to increasingly organise the vehicles’ roads, install bus stations and stops, and maintain the existing buses or buy new ones if needed. On the other hand, the bus lines overlap with other modes on the transport route. Hence, dedicated lanes for the public transportation should be provided, with dedicated stops and timetables. Beirut needs immediate action plans and working with the existing bus system could be a solution for the current time. In addition, a strict enforcement of traffic law can reduce traffic to up to 30%. It is necessary to rebuild ties between the state

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and the society. In such a way, by giving back to one of the citizen’s deprived rights (transportation). The citizens will then again trust the state actions and decisions.

Then, what is the role of the citizens’ initiatives in this case? The purpose is to create partnership in the city, rather than top-down projects. The map, app and the bus stops could be used as tools to facilitate the work of the state in upgrading the system and mobilising new bus community to use the buses.

Hence, innovation established new relationship in the city and reshaped the traditional way of thinking, by creating cooperation between the government, civil society and bus operators.

For a long term project, the state should have the “will” to serve its public community by investing in bigger infrastructure mobility interventions. In this case, BRT could be a solution.

I would also recommend developing a state support for car sharing. Drivers often purchase vehicles, which exceed their usual requirements for capacity and performance, such as a van or a light truck. Sharing the car is a new type of public transit “ridesharing”, which allows people to reduce their vehicle use and benefit from the car-sharing; therefore, traffic could be reduced and ultimately improve travel choices. Besides, this new system can give the chance for those currently with no access to an automobile. Car sharing can, therefore, increase equity by improving mobility options of individuals who are transportation disadvantaged. In Lebanon, indeed, there is Carpolo, Uber, Careem; however, they face disadvantages because clients can only pay by “credit card”, in a country whose economy still runs largely on cash transactions. Also, in this case, I am also talking about individuals sharing the same ride with others.

Then more fundamental changes need to be implemented on the level of the economy, state building and spatial planning as integration of the sharing system in transportation and land use planning. But first, it is important to have commitment and will from the state bodies to help in improving public services, create opportunity and justice not based on the idea of how we will get benefit?

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