FAYADIEH, Lebanon: In light of the recent road floods, the Public Works and Transportation Ministry has put forth a series of “radical” solutions to the government, including a public bus system.
“I presented a full report to the Cabinet about this issue [of road flooding] ... it includes immediate solutions that could take some time and long-term radical solutions,” ministry head Ghazi Zeaiter said.
The report was prepared by the ministry and other relevant bodies at his request after several main roads in the country were hit by floods resulting from heavy rainfall last month.
Zeaiter said radical solutions required cooperation between several ministries and bodies: “The Public Works and Transportation Ministry, the Energy and Water Ministry, the Interior Ministry, municipalities, the Environment Ministry are all involved.”
In what has become an annual occurrence at the start of winter, heavy rainfall last month flooded several Lebanese roads and regions, including a vital tunnel near the airport, trapping motorists for hours inside their vehicles. Similar floods occurred on the highway linking Beirut to Jounieh just weeks earlier.
An investigation found that the flooding of the highway in Ghazir was caused by drains blocked by soil, sand and gravel from a nearby construction site in Kesrouan.
Zeaiter said the flooding mostly resulted from the failure of other ministries to fulfill their duties: “The municipality and the Interior Ministry should have made sure that the owner of the construction site built a fence around the sand and gravel.”
As for the airport tunnel flooding, he attributed it to the overflowing of the Ghadir River, which passes through the southern suburbs of Beirut. This in turn was caused by unauthorized construction shrinking the width of the riverbed from 14 meters to 3 meters in certain areas. Some structures in the country were even built on top of storm drains, he added.
As for his ministry, Zeaiter acknowledged there had been a “dereliction” of duties related to monitoring the work of companies it had tasked to clean storm drains on highways linking Beirut to the south, north and the Bekaa Valley.
“On several occasions, I sent verbal warnings to some of the companies,” he said. “From now on, [I will make sure] these companies are satisfying the specifications book based on which they were granted the contract.”
Zeaiter also implored the public to cooperate with the authorities. “For example, we might ask people not to take a tunnel like the airport tunnel at a specific time when a storm is expected. Or ask them to wait for 30 minutes before going through the tunnel.
Zeaiter said the ministry was now fully prepared to deal with any emergency situations caused by storms.
Separately, the minister dismissed public transportation in Lebanon as something that “did not actually exist,” and voiced his intention to modify and adopt an old plan to revive the sector.
Currently, a private company operates a small number of public buses in Beirut and its suburbs, but the vehicles are in miserable condition and have not been renovated in over a decade. Zeaiter said that according to the plan, Beirut and its suburbs needed 900 new buses.
“I am considering whether we operate it jointly with the private sector or whether the private sector manages it alone under the supervision of the Railway and Public Transportation Authority, which would set the price and routes,” the minister said. “I want to go ahead with this plan.”
But one of the many obstacles facing the implementation of the plan is the presence of unauthorized structures on many of the suggested routes, he said.
Zeaiter added that the construction of a train route linking Beirut to Jounieh, which would put an end to the horrendous traffic on that stretch of road, was awaiting government approval.
“The World Bank told me it was ready to offer us a loan. We need to borrow $500 million. It is not an easy plan. It is expensive but it solves a problem.”
He added that a funding shortage was behind the delay in finalizing the highway linking Sidon to Tyre.
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