Tel Aviv light rail project revived

Fifteen years after the project was initiated, the bulldozers are set to begin working at three sites on the Tel Aviv light rail’s Red Line today. Completion date is scheduled for 2017. In contrast to the elaborate cornerstone- laying ceremony 15 years ago in the presence of prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu (in his previous term) and then-Tel Aviv mayor Roni Milo, today's event is expected to be low-key, possibly in remembrance of the previous embarrassing ceremony.

Next to the Em Hamoshava Interchange in Petah Tikva, in a parking lot by the Sheraton City Plaza hotel in Ramat Gan, and adjacent to Beit Romano in south Tel Aviv, bulldozers will begin digging three 25-meter vertical shafts through which the mining equipment will be lowered to dig out the underground section of the lightrail line. Eight machines are scheduled to dig 10 kilometers of subway tunnels between Jerusalem Boulevard in Jaffa to Geha Interchange at Petah Tikva.

At the same time, there will be a change in personalities at NTA – Metropolitan Mass Transit System Ltd., the government company in charge of the project, after the Finance Ministry revoked Metro Transport Solutions’s (MTS) concession in 2010. Galit Assaf Shenhar, who has served as general manager since Yishay Dotan was ousted in June 2010, will turn over the reins to Yitzhak Zochman, formerly Transportation Ministry deputy director-general for infrastructure development .

Assaf Shenhar, 36, has accompanied the Tel Aviv light-rail project since 1998 when she was a junior worker in the Finance Ministry’s budget department. Since then she has been involved in pushing through approval for the route of the Red Line from Petah Tikva to Bat Yam via Bnei Brak, Ramat Gan and Tel Aviv. In 2006, after two years as economic adviser to the director-general of the Prime Minister’s Office she joined NTA. That year MTS, a consortium of Africa- Israel Investments Ltd., Egged Bus Cooperative, Siemens and Portuguese and Chinese companies won the BOT tender to build and operate the project for 25 years. NTA’s role was secondary: to promote the plan, clear infrastructures on the route and engage in information activities.

Over the years, NTA was criticized for wasting resources and political appointments to its senior executive positions. Most problematic of all was NTA’s relationship with Mesilot, a transportation consultancy firm. In 1998, shortly after its establishment, NTA handed over responsibility for managing the project to Mesilot, which is owned by Ami Metom. Mesilot prepared the tenders to choose a franchisee for the Red Line.

In 2006, the State Comptroller’s Office was harshly critical of the connection between NTA and Mesilot, which was supposed to last for one year but had continued for many years. Over the years, Mesilot had increased the scope of its work substantially, and its workforce had risen from 12 to 70 employees at salaries verbally agreed to with NTA. In total, NTA paid Mesilot more than NIS 300 million, and the work that Mesilot undertook for that huge amount became virtually worthless, after the government decided to nationalize the project. When former MK Michael Ratzon became NTA’s chairman, he was amazed to discover that the government company had no professional capabilities because almost all its staff and data banks were controlled by Mesilot.

In August 2010, the government decided to cancel MTS’s concession agreement, after it failed to gain bank financing for the project. In December 2010, the government nationalized the project and handed it over to NTA. The general manager of a medium-sized company, Shenhar suddenly found herself in one of the most important and prestigious management positions in the public sector. Colleagues in the infrastructures sector raised their eyebrows. “There is no doubt that she is talented,” a person familiar with the matter said about her, “but she comes without any experience in megaprojects or professional knowledge about trains. No private company would dream of letting her manage a NIS 12 billion project. This could only happen in public service.”

Looking back, even Shenhar’s critics admit that she has not done badly in the job. The project is moving forward as planned; more than 20 international tenders were issued in 2011, and the major construction tenders for building stations and digging tunnels will be published at the start of 2012. Project-management company Parsons Brinckerhoff has been hired as a senior consultant, mainly to handle the integration of the various contractors. NTA’s workforce has tripled to 100, and its operating budget has grown to NIS 30m.

Source Jerusalem Post