Baghdad, Iraq: The country of Iraq has been in news only for its series of conflicts that have devastated all of its infrastructure does not have, as of now, any practically existent public transport.

In Baghdad, the capital of Iraq with a population of almost nine million people, general public relies on their own cars, taxis, or privately owned minibuses to go around.

But the transport does not come cheap, coupled with long-neglected, dilapidated road networks and the omnipresence of checkpoints make the movement in the city very difficult, time consuming and at last expensive too.

“Transport isn’t just expensive, it takes so much time. An errand that shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes, takes 90 because of traffic,” says Murtada Huwaidy, a labourer from Baghdad.

“Roads are old and broken, and bridges are always jammed. It’s horrible to get around.”

When using one of Baghdad’s 13 bridges to cross Tigris river, particularly, congestion is very bad. The Tigris river cuts the city into two halves.

One the river was considered beating heart of Baghdad and now may hold the answer to easing the resident’s transport woes.

A new initiative providing affordable and easy as well as quick means of public transport and along with that reviving movement along the Tigris line is the ‘River Taxi’. The river was since the successive conflicts under neglect and water levels too declined.

The initial phase of the ongoing city’s first river taxi mode service is scheduled to come into effect in September. The taxi service was launched by Baghdad’s provincial in cooperation with the Iraqi ministry for transport.

Earlier this year, after a successful three month trial period, during which river taxis started moving between the two stations, authorities started aiming to build at least nine more stops to be able to connect the northern suburb Hussieniya of the city to al-Mada’en located in the south by February 2019.

A total of 22 river boats made up in various sizes would be ferrying people across the two banks of the Tigris apart from the up and down of the river. The boats can take between six to 44 customers at a time.

A single journey may cost 500 dinars (approx. less than Rs. 30) which is a significant price when compared to an average taxi fare of not less than 5,000 – 10,000 dinars (less than 300 – 600 rupees).

Ali Mohamed, who is a student uses the river taxi to reach his Baghdad University in Jadhriya from his home in Adhamiya.

“It made my life easier,” says Mohamed.

“But they have to build stations for the river taxis nearer other universities and residential areas. That will help people get onto them and reach their destinations in no time.”

According to Mohamed al-Rubaie, head of strategy and planning in Baghdad’s provincial council, building the infrastructure for the project – which authorities began studying to have one in 2016 – has been the cause for its speedier completion.

“The easy and inexpensive part was purchasing the boats. The hard part is establishing the infrastructure for them to work properly,” he says, pointing towards a rusty boat station along the river that he says will be ready to use in a few months.

“To get those [the stops] ready for usage, we need to either rent or buy the land and provide nearby car parks, which costs money and requires a genuine will [from the government] to implement.”

After negotiations to be held between the country’s political leaders to form a governing coalition still to be held, major decisions such as this one along with other projects have come to a standstill.

“When we did the pilot launch, the boats were quite busy, even though Iraq doesn’t have a culture of using public transport,” he says. “The boats we have will eventually be insufficient.”

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