Traffic in the Balance... at The Woman's Voice Symposium

At the symposium of “The Woman's Voice”

With Captain Youssef Harakeh, Ibtihaj Kaddoura, Ellen Rihan, Fouad al-Said, Rushdi Ma'alouf, and the head of the drivers' syndicate, Ibrahim Hajjal.

Traffic in the Lebanese capital is affected by the following matters:

- The condition of the streets and the parking places.
- The question of the electric tram.
- The manners of the drivers and the manners of the people...

If you were to “steer” your steps to the offices of “The Woman's Voice,” and cross the narrow passage leading to the editorial room, you would come face to face with Miss Ibtihaj Kaddoura at the “head” of the symposium, “driving” her questions at the “pole” of the new and blessed traffic movement, Captain Youssef Harakeh; keeping pace with her, her “municipal” colleague Mrs. Ellen Rihan, who took care to guard the “rear” of the flying debate, which the economist Mr. Fouad al-Said aimed like a piercing “arrow”; all of which prompted the journalist Mr. Rushdi Ma'alouf to put on the guise of the “scorpion” whose “beneficial” sting has so long held readers fast; and this plan of attack and defense ends with the “planet,” Mr. Ibrahim Hajjal, head of the drivers' syndicate, who circles along with all the opinions and comes to rest only beside the “pole” — naturally!

*

Kaddoura: Our purpose in taking up the problem of traffic just now is the signs of steady improvement we have observed of late, carried out under the supervision of the worthy Captain. In our symposium today the various points of view opposed to the new traffic system will be set forth, and we ask Captain Harakeh to be so kind as to answer...

Al-Said: The problem which the responsible authorities are working to solve is caused not so much by the abundance of cars as by the need for a technical engineering design embracing the whole city — one that works to profit from every meter that can be added to the breadth of the streets, so that their margins may serve as parking places holding the greatest possible number of cars... That is, if everyone in their driving applies the one-way rule, Sense Unique. And how quickly they are thwarted by the disproportion between the hugeness of the buildings, with the multitude of cars attached to them, and the narrowness of the street onto which they look. None of this can be blamed on the age of the streets, for we still see new streets being cut and new buildings going up, each encroaching upon the other in just this fashion — take, for example, the Plaza Hotel...

Ma'alouf: The problem, in my view, is not a problem of “moving” but a problem of “stopping!” Traffic regulation was made to secure the interests of the people. How, then, do we guarantee a man who wants to buy a cinema ticket or a piece of cloth that he can finish his errand in a third of an hour? And does it harm the owners of commercial establishments if a private car stops in front of them for about an hour, as—

Captain Harakeh: By what right do car owners “take possession,” free of charge, of the most expensive land in Beirut?

Hajjal: It has likewise been shown by trial that private cars obstruct parking, since their drivers are away from them — unlike the taxi, which is always on the move.

Rihan: What is done in every city of the world is to create parking grounds outside the town, if need be, from which those moving about fan out by taxi, service, or bus; nor is it too much to ask the citizen to bear some responsibility for the sake of the public interest — that must come before the private interest, which in this country we have grown used to having come to us smooth and sweet!

Harakeh: Yes; and we must not forget that among the constituents of our daily life are essential factors that must be regarded — doctors' clinics, travel bureaus, airline companies, bank offices, newspaper offices, the seats of the diplomatic corps; in a word, everyone who performs a public service — the public at large must appreciate his work and labor to ease it.

Ma'alouf: I do not see that the system of the Plaque for certain classes of people and not others solves the problem; very often it is unfair. If the Captain will consent to come with me on a short tour through the main streets, I will show him spacious areas that could be put to use for the parking of the private cars, which suffer some pinching under the new system...

Kaddoura: And now let us pass to the problem of the tram, and ask the head of the drivers' syndicate what his colleagues complain of.

Hajjal: The tram is the knot of all knots. There is no final solution to the traffic problem without its abolition.

Kaddoura: Does the tram reach every street?

Al-Said: Of course not. But Beirut's “tributary” streets all empty into the “main” streets that carry the electric lines; so the one presses on the other and causes this vexing congestion...

Ma'alouf: The cities of Europe have profited by using a kind of tram that has the bus's advantage as regards electricity and the car's advantage as regards rubber wheels, and is distinguished by running along the side of the road.

Harakeh: Our daily life also rests — quite apart from novelties and plans — upon a working class that finds in the tram its sole means of getting about, for the great social service it renders. So we hold that doing away with it is unsuitable; rather—

—is allowed in Egypt? Lest our lot become the lot of the flying saucers... no sooner touching the ground than off they shoot into space again!

Harakeh: First, I have trustworthy information from Alexandria: private cars there are allowed to stop not an hour, nor half an hour, but only twenty minutes of it. Second, as to the merchants: I have received from their leading men in Beirut expressions of gratitude that their doorways are clear of cars. They prefer that buyers make their way to them on foot rather than that their shopfronts be screened all day and all night; besides which, the business of stopping in the Queue is far easier than pulling out of it, with the Manœuvre that requires, blocking the arrival of another car — to say nothing of the consumption of gasoline, the waste of time, and a general commotion the street can well do without. And I cannot help alluding to the owners of private cars and their unjustified abuse of the police in this matter.

Hajjal: It has likewise been shown by trial that private cars obstruct parking—

—ways can be studied by which its lines would be confined to the suburbs and to running in one direction. We are at present studying this project in all its practical and economic aspects, and I believe that in it lies the satisfactory solution.

Kaddoura: This is a fitting occasion for us today to hear something about the drivers' syndicate — will Mr. Hajjal permit it?

Hajjal: Not all drivers are enrolled as members of the syndicate, which makes watching them and pursuing them a toilsome affair; hence it is more proper that this work be left to the municipalities. I recall that we once formed a summary disciplinary board, and the judiciary blocked us in it because we had obtained no legal text empowering us to take measures against offenders. And it is only fair to draw attention to the driver's condition as a whole and to take his actual circumstances from the positive side: he is one of the ninety percent of taxi owners who are in debt for the mere acquisition of the car, and must earn, in many cases, twenty Lebanese lira a day to pay off that debt! Shall we then blame him for his fierce scramble after earnings, and his pouncing on “passengers,” when on top of it he has a wife and little ones?... The most important thing we have done is to restrict the granting of taxi licenses, resorting to several means — among them raising the price of the number plate to thirteen thousand lira.

Al-Said: It appears to me that securing traffic and transport is the municipality's business, in which it should turn to the government only on the legal side. It is a vital project whose study requires ample time for inquiry and thoroughness, after which it should be carried to the highest authorities, that they may ratify it and bear whatever costs its execution may encounter.

Harakeh: Now that the existing state of affairs has swollen into a general tumult among cars, buses, and passers-by, and with the country in its tourist year, there is no escaping the removal of the causes of the tumult, however trifling they may seem — just as the surgeon's scalpel is brought to bear on inflamed organs, however small, and treats them with the speed and efficacy required. Among these measures: forbidding bicycles and wooden scooters, and sending out police pursuers on their motorcycles. Then, we are about to create Parking grounds at the Lazariyeh site, on Emir Amin Street, on the Maqasid land, at the Bahrain café, and opposite UNESCO... all of them amounting to five worksites laboring night and day. And perhaps in the future we shall find room underground for a hundred cars, as beneath the Hajj Daoud café.

★

And so, thanks to the steering of the dialogue and its protection at the two “municipal” ends, the “planet” traveled by the signal of the “pole,” untouched by any harm from the “arrow” or the “scorpion”!