Accessibility analysis

Accessibility in the city is multifaceted. It can refer to the physical distribution of residents and the ease of these residents to essential facilities (health, employment, education, leisure) and activities around the city. Easy access to these essential facilities is affected by the distance of floating these facilities from residents. As such, equitable access in this sense can be interpreted as the equal distances to facilities by residents across the entire city at any given time.

Whilst this is an ideal in city-building, it is often not achieved in reality. Understanding how facilities are spread across the city is indispensable to fair and just policy-making. This is because asymmetric distribution across the city has been shown to offer dissimilar opportunities and impose disproportionate costs to certain demographic groups (i.e., those vulnerable). As a result, poor accessibility is often attributed to maintaining urban poverty by hindering upward mobility. With this, decreased accessibility imposes additional barriers to urban opportunities to those already disadvantaged by increasing the distance and cost of travel, in addition to the opportunity costs of time spent travelling. It contributes to socioeconomic ghettoization within the city, which may lead to exacerbating issues of socioeconomic and demographic segregation.

Our study considers two dimensions of resident access to facilities: first, their physical distribution, and, second, a way to try and measure if the mapped facilities attract residents to specific locations across Beirut. This former considers schools and hospitals; and, the latter analysis considers only hospitals given the limited data available.  In this review, equity should be considered to alleviate potential issues of  "poverty of access". Policy-makers need to be able to appraise the potential and realized costs incurred by all demographic groups; and, identify areas of mitigation to prevent further socioeconomic disparities due to locations. Certainly, the many issues that arise from poor accessibility may be considered systemic and self-fortifying.

In Beirut, how accessibility levels may change over time with the growth and rebuilding of the city needs to be considered if equitable change is to be realized. Certainly, leaving this important urban dimension unmonitored may have long-lasting financial and socioeconomic implications both for its people and administration.

In understanding accessibility in Beirut, we consider the number of people that are able to walk to any school or hospital in the city. Our analysis, at this level, assumes that all facilities included are equal in their capacity and attractiveness to the general population. The results show two highly disparate scenes. The spatial distribution of both facility types show two distinct patterns in that schools appear to be more evenly spread throughout the greater municipal area. In contrast, hospitals in Beirut are predominantly located in two regions. First, four hospitals are found in just the Ras Beyrouth and Minet el-Hosn area, whereas Mazraa, Moussaytbeh, Achrafieh, Romeil, and Medawar each have one hospital within their municipal boundary. The distribution of these facilities has two very tangible implications on the people of Beirut. The analysis conducted estimates an average walking time of 6.79 minutes to a school in Beirut; however, reaching an institutional medical center in the city would require an average of 16.8 minutes. Visualizing the data elucidates the findings more clearly. In Figure 4.b, where the spatial distribution of hospitals is shown, a clear divide in accessibility is seen between the northwest and the arc from east to south Beirut.

Fig 4.a Accessibility analysis and the spatial distribution of school facilities in Beirut 

Fig 4.b  Accessibility analysis and the spatial distribution of hospital facilities in Beirut 

Fig 4.c Ability to reach a school facility by foot within a 10 minute walk

Fig 4.d  Ability to reach a hospital facility by foot within a 10 minute walk

In view of this poor access to hospitals, our analysis then aimed to understand how the location of higher capacity hospitals that have a higher capacity (as proxied by their annual number of visitors) influences movement in Beirut. The findings here may help inform where underserved areas may be located by the proportion of residents required to travel large distances to reach a particular hospital. Our findings show that Hotel Dieu de France, AUB Medical Centre, and Lebanese Hospital Geitoui account for over 60% of all movement to hospitals in Beirut. These facilities lie in Minet el-Hosn, Achrafieh, and Medawar 

Fig 4.e Movement of commuters to hospitals in Beirut 

Fig 4.f  % of all movement to hospitals in Beirut

Key Findings:

• The results of the isochrone mapping highlight two very disparate attributes. Assuming that all facilities included within this study are equal, the model suggests an average walking time of 6.79 minutes to school across the wider Beirut. 
• This comes in contrast to access to hospitals, where an average walking time of 16.8 minutes was estimated.
• Visualizing the data elucidates the findings more clearly. In Figure X, where the spatial distribution of hospitals are shown, a clear divide in accessibility is seen between the northwest and the arc from east to south Beirut.
• The findings suggest that a large proportion of Beirut’s population may suffer from a lack of access to hospital services just by virtue of their spatial distribution
• The findings are corroborated when population data is included. The figures above show that 5 neighborhoods (Zoukak el-Blatt, Saifeh, Bachoura, Beirut CBD, Mazraa) do not hold any residents that are able to access any hospital services within a 10-minute walk. In contrast, 6 neighborhoods in Beirut (Marfaa, Beirut CBD, Bachoura, Zoukak el-Blatt, Saifeh, Remeil, Minet el-Hosn) where all residents are able to reach school facilities within a 10-minute walking distance.