Bus parking

byHabib Battah
Jun 4, 2008

This city bus may look like it’s part of a stream of traffic, but its actually going nowhere.

There are no passengers and no driver.

Yet the keys are still in the ignition and the engine is on.

Some see the utter lack of traffic rules in Beirut as a chaotic nightmare. But others find the situation charming. Where else in the world can you park a bus in the middle of a lane on a narrow street, back up traffic for blocks, and leave the keys in the ignition?

Tags:
buses

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.