A Elias Maartouf He only needed a small fire to fall in love with the train. 20 years ago, this Lebanese filmmaker, born and raised in Ecuador, wanted to film the withdrawal of the Syrian army of his country after almost three decades of occupation. The largest military base of Rayakhis hometown in the Becá Valley, was at the railway station. There, the Syrians had a jail, and intelligence facilities, where people were tortured, but missiles were also built. While recording, Maalouf ran into a little fire in one of the train cars. The filmmaker turned off as he could to discover that, before leaving, the Syrians tried to burn the Railroad Centennial Archive. But they didn’t succeed.
Those semi -peppers were the seed for a fight that has brought him until today, two decades later. Among those documents with as many years of existence as forgetfulness, Maalouf was fascinated with a country that did not know. Not only because his family had fled Ecuador during the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990), but because it no longer exists. “We had busesWe had tramsWe had locomotives, urban electric trains, we had interurban trains, we had Regional trains of goods and now we have nothing, ”laments the doctor Carlos Naffahcurrent director of the Oenegé Train/Train Lebanon, created by Maalouf five years after that meeting with the fire with the intention of recovering what they had taken away: the train.
Woman hanging clothes in front of the tracks / Andrea López-Tomàs
Many in Lebanon A lost battle. They put their eyes blank when the possibility is mentioned that an efficient public transport connect the scarce 10,542 kilometers squares that make up this sea country and mountains. But there are a few who do not give up. “We love our country,” Naffah confesses to this newspaper. “This is what motivates us to fight, to offer future generations a better country, because we believe that when we have a healthy public spacebroader, there will be more participation, more stability and more peace among the various communities, “he explains.” Now we do not have a space where diversity can be found, because public space is getting smaller, “he adds.
Two million cars
In Lebanon, the transport Shared is mainly composed of ‘Services’, That is, shared taxis, and microbuses. But the majority of the population moves by car. In this country of six million inhabitantsthere are more than two million cars. However, not everyone can afford to buy one or even keep it since Lebanon is engaged in One of the worst economic crises worldwide since 1850, according to the World Bank. Therefore, at the opportunity, a semi -formal public transport system, composed of rammed vans and slow microbuses. These vehicles follow a specific route without a specific schedule and stop at the place that the passenger wants before the absence of official stops.
Remains of the roads in Naqoura, in La Fronetra with Israel / Andrea López-Tomàs
After the Lebanese civil war, public transport was disused. A very small fleet of state buses, very old and in poor condition continues to operate, even if they only transport to less than 20,000 passengers a day. In parallel, there are more than 4,000 buses and microbuses privately registered, but it is estimated that more than double circulates on the Lebanese roads. “Many people are afraid to take this informal vehicle network for several reasons, such as sexual harassment, the delay, for not being reliable, and because it is dangeroussince drivers lead recklessly, ”acknowledges the architect and urbanist Youla Younescreator of the Urit Beirut Urban Observatory, to El Periódico.
Roads
But, throughout the country, there are other ways to move. The train tracks that connected the Lebanese capital with Syria, Iraq, Türkiye and Europe They are full of weeds. In August 1895the first steam train started from Beirut and opened the more than 408 kilometers of railroad that crossed the country. However, since most of the country’s infrastructure after the civil war, the rail service suffered great losses and its operations were gradually decreasing to the beginning of the early 1990.
The stations are disused or have been transformed for other functions. Beirut’s main station in the Christian neighborhood of Mar Mikhaelin front of the port, it is now used as the garages of the few buses that are in circulation. Before the economic crisis, it was an outdoor disco. “In the files that Maalouf recovered from the line huge anthropological impact that the railroad has, ”recalls Naffah. Despite the skepticism of most society, Train/Train Lebanon volunteers created a National Master Plan to reinstall the railroad in Lebanon.
Civil Society
As a large part of the advances in the country of Cedros, it is civil society who takes the initiative in front of the absence of strong political will To have an integrated transport system. The decades of activism to achieve efficient public transport in Lebanon have translated into initiatives such as the Urit Beirut Observatory, the Train/Train Lebanon plan, or the mapping of informal buses made by the Oenegé Riders’ Rights (Passenger rights, in English).
Now, the new government led by the Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and the president Joseph Aoun It seems to have started listening to them. “We see a light A small ray of hopebecause the government is taking this issue very seriously and is implementing a kind of public transport service, ”confesses you. In recent weeks, the Directorate of Railways and Public Transportation of the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation has launched New bus routes“As part of their continuous plan to improve public transport services and offer more safe and efficient travel options,” according to a statement.
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