Project Details

Narrative Description of Project:

The Beirut Urban Transport Development Project (UTDP) includes an On-Street Parking component which introduced Paid On-Street parking in areas with predominant commercial use. But many of Beirut neighborhoods include significant residential uses mixed with office and retail uses. Residents in those neighborhoods complained from the inconvenience of the new situation, primarily from the need to remove their cars (if they wished not to pay for parking) during the period when paid parking is enforced.

The objective of the study was to investigate whether some kind of a Residential Parking Permit should be introduced to mitigate inconvenience to residents, and to investigate policy options regarding those issues and how to generalize over the entire city.

Description of Actual Services Provided:

The scope of services included reviewing the international good practice regarding Residential Parking Permits, and compare the pre-requisites for success with the local conditions in Beirut. Analysis was made also of the wealth of data captured by the Pay &Display machines installed in Hamra, primarily regarding distribution of parked cars over the hours of the day, the parking duration and turnover. Results were compared to those of “before” parking surveys. Residents were interviewed as they were riding their cars in the morning leaving the study area and during their return in the afternoon.

Based on the analysis of desk investigations and field surveys, three policy options were formulated and were subjected to a SWOT analysis.
Final recommendations were produced regarding an ultimate on-street parking policy for the entire city. Interim solutions for mitigating the inconvenience to residents were also proposed.