Why Beirutis don’t use sidewalks

byHabib Battah
Jun 17, 2013

People get hit by cars all the time in Lebanon.

The municipality of Beirut is preparing to spend millions on new roads and parking garages. But how can you build new roads if you cannot even regulate the ones you already have?

Experts say the only way to reduce traffic in the city is to reduce the number of cars.

But if pedestrians are treated as second class citizens, how can we expect people to walk more and use their cars less?

Habib Battah

Habib Battah is an investigative journalist and founder of the news site beirutreport.com. Battah has covered Lebanon and the Middle East for over 15 years and teaches journalism and media studies at the American University of Beirut. He is a contributor to Monocle, The Guardian, BBC World, Al Jazeera and others, a former fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University and two-time recipient of the Samir Kassir Press Freedom Award. Battah's investigative work was recently recognized for outstanding local reporting by the Columbia University Oakes Award for Environmental Reporting. Battah earned a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.A. in Near East Studies and Journalism from New York University.