Asia-Pacific

Energy and fuel crises sees more people in Beirut opting for the bicycle

For years, government policies made Lebanese capital inhospitable for cyclists

A traffic jam of vehicles queued up to refuel from a petrol station in Beirut, Lebanon in July. Photograph: Marwan Tahtah/Getty

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Dan Griffin in Beirut
Sun Nov 14 2021 - 17:13

Cyclosport, a retro-looking bicycle shop on Rue Gouraud, in Beirut’s lively Gemmayze neighbourhood, is a long-standing bastion of cycling in a city ruled by cars.

Cyclists are a rare sight on the streets of the Lebanese capital and it’s easy to see why: the traffic is crazy, there are no cycle lanes; if there is a hierarchy of road users, cyclists surely occupy the bottom rung.

A theory exists that the city authorities only installed traffic lights as a way of attracting tourists. In her 2009 memoir Beirut, I Love You, artist Zena el Khalil wryly suggests they were a ploy to make visitors feel safe. "I remember when we didn't [have traffic lights]," she writes. "Not much has changed since then."

That means Lebanese drivers are probably well adapted to cope with the country’s energy crisis, which has knocked out virtually all of Beirut’s traffic lights. But more difficult to swallow are the soaring petrol prices associated with the concurrent fuel crisis.

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'Nobody knows exactly where this private water sold without any legal authority comes from'

A visitor strolling or, if you’re brave enough, cycling around Beirut’s vibrant Hamra and Achrafieh districts today might look at the traffic-clogged streets and wonder how you could possibly fit one more car onto them. But apparently this is nothing. Many people will tell you the streets are “empty” because drivers cannot afford fuel. It’s bad news for the motorists of Beirut, obviously, but not for everyone.

"It's like a dream coming true," says Noubar Korjikian, the owner of Cyclosport. He believes fewer cars on the streets is a positive thing for Lebanon. "This will lead to a more healthy country, a healthier capital and people will start to use bicycles more as there are not that many cars," he says, standing behind the counter in his shop, which has served Beirut's cyclists since 1932.

A walk down Gouraud Street, a buzzy thoroughfare filled with cafes and restaurants a few minutes from the city’s downtown area, offers a small insight into the tangle of crises knotted around Lebanon.

Diners at the beloved Le Chef restaurant, a few doors down from Cyclosport, can keep track of hyper-inflation by looking at the menu and noting where all the prices have been crossed out and re-written in biro. As one of the world’s worst financial collapses since the 19th century unfolds, the price of chickpea fatteh with yogurt and pine nuts has increased from 8,000 to 18,000 Lebanese pounds (€10.40) in a matter of weeks.

Further along the narrow street, another shop displays a selection of pristine electricity generators, which have become sought-after consumer items since the output from the national grid was reduced to only a few hours a day.

In the mornings you see private trucks parked on footpaths, selling water to businesses and residents amid ongoing water shortages. “Nobody knows exactly where this private water sold without any legal authority comes from,” writes novelist Charid Majdalani in Beirut 2020 – The Collapse of a Civilisation, but you see the trucks everywhere.

'We are down now. Maybe for a few months coming we will be more down. But you have to go down more to rebound'

All the while, evidence of last year’s massive explosion at the port of Beirut, less than a kilometre away, can be seen in the scarred buildings and ongoing reconstruction work.

And all of this is in addition to Covid-19.

You detect a sense of exasperation. In October 2019, years of public frustration with political corruption and financial mismanagement finally erupted when the Lebanese government announced a tax on calls on messaging services – the so-called WhatsApp tax.

More than a million people took to the streets, the prime minister resigned and a new cabinet was formed. But Majdalani says the new administration did little to address the country’s problems: “no resolutions, no decisions, no action plans, nothing,” he writes.

This new government then resigned following the port explosion last year and now a general election is scheduled to take place in March 2022.

But faith in the political class appears palpably low. Back on Gouraud Street, the window of a stationary shop displays a poster featuring a large image of the shop owner’s dog. “Very dear Flash,” the caption reads. “You are more HONOURABLE and PRECIOUS than any of our CORRUPT politicians!!!!!!!!!”

“It’s the truth,” says the owner, who doesn’t believe things will improve any time soon – “no, definitely not”.

But up in Cyclosport, Korjikian is more sanguine. For him, a former racing champion, “cycling and politics are related”. For years, government policies made Beirut inhospitable for cyclists, but Korjikian sees hope for Lebanon in a younger generation of eco-conscious citizens.

He believes they will make a difference at the ballot box in March. “For every down, there is an up,” he says, invoking his memories of the civil war in the 1970s and 1980s. “We are down now. Maybe for a few months coming we will be more down. But you have to go down more to rebound.”