Baghdad Street in Damascus turning into parking lot as cars are left behind
Dusty cars sit abandoned on one of Damascus’ main streets, […]
1 June 2015
Dusty cars sit abandoned on one of Damascus’ main streets, prompting some residents to complain that the street has turned into a “parking lot,” in pictures published on Monday by the pro-regime Damascus Now media network on their Facebook page.
“Our neighborhoods have become warehouses; this is a circus,” posted one commenter.
Damascus Now reported that the volume of abandoned cars on the street had caused problems in cleaning the street and amplified traffic problems.
“The reason for this phenomenon is that people emigrating from the capital are leaving their cars parked on the side of the road,” a local resident told Syria Direct on Tuesday.
Another resident added that people were leaving their cars on the street as they stopped using them given the rising price of gas and public transportation that makes it easier to pass through the capital’s checkpoints.
Checkpoints also cause problems for drivers with license plates from areas under opposition control, telling the story of a customer who bought a car with Douma plates abandoning his car more than two years ago due to “the proliferation of checkpoints,” Abu Khaldoun, a car salesman from the Damascus outskirts told Syria Direct on Monday.
-Photo courtesy of Damascus Now