Seeds for socio-spatial justice and equitable mobility for all: The “Bus Map Project” as “Riders’ Rights” in Beirut

The present article discusses the possibilities and limitations of transport-related innovative initiatives in Beirut, Lebanon, through a socio-spatial institutionalist perspective, within a socially divided neoliberal context splintered by sectarianism and political turmoil. The article examines the reach of the grassroots initiative “Bus Map Project”, which in 2019 became the NGO “Riders Rights” (BMP–RR), in achieving socio-spatial justice and equitable mobility by recreating and reshaping the debate on Beirut’s informal transit system. The latter has various ambivalent features, and an often negative connotation, since it operates in mixed traffic with other vehicles, with no fixed stops, and is not considered as formal transit. However, it is a private–publicؘ–civil hybrid system. The empirical data is built on participatory action research (PAR) with BMP–RR since 2018, socio-spatial and ethnographic analysis of the informal transit system, and in-depth interviews with various transport-related agencies. The conclusion emphasizes that the radical ambitions of socially innovative arrangements are possible even in so unstable and divided contexts as Beirut. However, they are limited by the structural problems of a consociational government, which are deeply rooted in the Lebanese history and cannot be easily overcome by such initiatives.