Traffic in Beirut is grinding to a halt. The daily commute for the city’s workers is getting longer and more frustrating. As long ago as 1994 the government set up a comprehensive Greater Beirut Area Transportation Plan (GBATP) that was meant to address the most serious urban transportation issues through to the year 2015. The GBATP identified four main categories that needed immediate attention: (1) the lack of institutional capacity for urban transport planning and traffic management in the Greater Beirut Area (GBA), (2) the lack of capacity in the existing road network, (3) the lack of parking management and the shortage of parking spaces and (4) the unregulated public transport system. As of early 2008, none of these four issues have been solved. In 2002, however, the World Bank Urban Traffic Development Project did give a big push towards helping Beirut solve its chronic traffic problems, with a $65
