Economic growth in Lebanon viewed through the transport sector : a case study of the potential revival of the Tripoli-Beirut railway as a way of addressing the paradox of sustainable development -

Abstract

Transport is strongly linked to economic development by a complex set of opposite double-effect mechanisms and determinants. In Lebanon, a small developing country with rapid urban sprawl promoting auto dependency trends, huge negative externalities including congestion, accidents, air pollution, environmental noise and climate change estimated in our study at 3 Billion USD (7percent of GDP forecast 2015) are generated by road transport. In this context, the revitalization of sustainable transport modes such as railway along the highly congested suburban corridors (i.e. Beirut-Jounieh-Tripoli) is examined as a potential mean to reduce the effect of these welfare losses and address the challenge of sustainable development. With these results we aspire to develop the notion of self-destructive economic growth, and to justify the urgent need to shift the current development paradigm, moving away from the traditional unconditional growth-oriented and all-else-equal models towards all-inclusive models of sustainable development.