Transportation
The Buses of Beirut Are Crazy. This App Might Tame Them.
The city has lacked regulated public transportation since its civil war.
To ride a bus in Beirut, you have to hail it like a taxi. Drivers pick riders up along routes that have been established informally, based on need. Mapping company Zawarib’s guide of the city’s typical routes advises, “Buses will stop for you at any point...Just make yourself elegantly noticeable!”
Beirut’s public transport wasn’t always this slapdash. Before the civil war that raged from 1975 to 1990, trams and buses with dedicated routes were widely used. The war shattered the city, including its formal transit networks. “It changed everything,” said Tammam Nakkash, an engineer who has advocated for public transportation in Beirut for decades. “It wasn’t safe to go from one side of the city to the other.”