Lebanon’s tourism advertising campaign presents the country as a paradise of pristine mountain landscapes, beautiful shorelines and night time cavorting. What the ads don’t show are the effects of the apparent lack of interest by Lebanon’s public institutions to regulate waste management, protect the environment or deal with the perpetual gridlock on the country’s streets. Such images would not be good for Lebanon’s brand identity.
This is quite understandable; no country would highlight such downsides. But with tourism projected to contribute directly and indirectly an estimated $7 billion to the Lebanese economy this year — equivalent to 28 percent of gross domestic product — such images should be embarrassing to the sector. Resolving Lebanon’s environmental woes requires comprehensive efforts and capital to invest in infrastructure improvements. But there are also other initiatives that can be taken on a more local level.
Take Gemmayze street (the official name is “Rue Gouraud”). To drive the one kilometer long, one way street that runs from the edge of Martyrs’ Square to the Éléctricité du Liban building, it can take anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour as people search for parking or hand over keys to a valet. For an essentially straight and flat street, near areas with ample parking, like downtown and Charles Helou Station, such a log jam would seem a major urban planning oversight.
But in Gemmayze’s case, an area of ‘traditional character’ according to the signage, the street transformed into a nightlife hub haphazardly, bar by bar, restaurant by restaurant. The nightly traffic jam is also not solely due to a lack of planning. A big contributor to the jam is the Lebanese penchant for valet car parking, which combines a propensity for showing off with a reluctance to walk.
What if Rue Gouraud were to follow the example of cities as far apart as Shanghai, Cape Town, York, Copenhagen, Montreal and Curtiba, Brazil? What all these cities have done is “pedestrianize” streets or whole blocks, whether for retail, nightlife or areas of historic interest.
But Gemmayze would not need to look abroad to see how pedestrianization was implemented; half a kilometer away is pedestrian friendly downtown Beirut. With the upcoming opening of the Beirut Souks, the pedestrian area will be extended even further, and it could spread eastwards if Gemmayze followed suit.
The municipality could install rising bollards at either end of the long street, making Gemmayze pedestrian but also accessible at specific times for delivery trucks and residents with parking permits.
Parking space could be found in Martyrs’ Square, and if Charles Helou was given a lick of paint, fumigated, and linked via a bridge, several hundred more vehicles could be parked. For those unwilling to walk, a fleet of golf carts could be added to the current half dozen that ply downtown to transport people. Pedestrianized, bars and restaurants could spill onto Rue Gouraud, and there could be live music, dancers, street artists and performers. People would mix and mingle, no-one would be aggravated from a traffic jam or altercation with a valet, and air pollution would undoubtedly be reduced.
While this sounds desirable, there are always obstacles. In other cities, when streets have been pedestrianized, gentrification has also occurred, changing demographics. Lebanon’s ‘old rent’ laws, where rents were frozen at a particular monthly rate prior to the civil war, has prevented this from happening. It has also meant elderly residents need vehicle access. Noise pollution is another potential issue, although if the demographics changed, would be less of a problem, with those moving in aware of the neighborhood’s lively night time atmosphere. The valet car parking “mafia,” which attempts to control the parking spaces that line Gouraud street and surrounding roads, could also oppose such a move to pedestrianization.
Then the party-goers themselves may very well resist such an idea, too accustomed to valet parking and reluctant to give up a perceived convenience — although it may take 40 minutes to get to the valet, as opposed to a 10 minute walk from parking lots on the eastern edge of downtown or, if it were renovated, Charles Helou.
But there are indications some nightlife patrons are willing to forgo their valet. A bar owner, not overly in favor of pedestrianization, admitted that out of the 150 cars usually valet parked every Friday, on one particular night there were only 15, as people shunned their cars to walk. While anecdotal, this does suggest that people are willing to forgo the valet to save time.
For access to Gouraud to improve — whether by improving parking or opting for pedestrianization — this would require a united front by residents and business owners to surmount the biggest obstacle, bureaucracy and vested political and economic interests.
PAUL COCHRANE is the Middle East correspondent for the International News Services
