Light rail construction to disrupt Tel Aviv traffic till 2021

The Tel Aviv municipality has begun preparing for the “messy phase” of the Tel Aviv light rail Red Line works and is planning to launch a broad PR campaign a month before the works begin, after it becomes clear that they will not be delayed again. The city is currently working to identify residents and business owners who are liable to be harmed by the works. Municipality sources said, “There is no avoiding it. It’s not reasonable to expect that works such as demolishing the Carlebach bridge will happen without a significant adverse effect on traffic.”

The construction of five underground stations in Tel Aviv will commence between August and September: Carlebach, Shaul Hamelech, Allenby, Arlozorov, and Yehudit. The first stage of construction will include the excavation of the areas where the future stations will be built. The works are expected to continue until 2021, and while they are underway, traffic throughout the city will be affected. The project site where worst traffic disruption is expected is the Carlebach station project, during construction of which traffic will be redirected from Begin Road, Carlebach, Hamasger, Lincoln, Hataasiya, Hamelacha, Yitzhak Sadeh, and Rival streets.

Begin Road will be closed to traffic in the Carlebach junction area, the Ma’ariv bridge will be demolished, to be replaced by an underpass. Public transport will be adjusted according to the anticipated new traffic arrangements resulting from the works, and will be redirected to Hamasger and Hahashmonaim streets. Dedicated public transport lanes will be opened on these streets. The direction of traffic will be reversed on Hataasiya and Hamelacha streets. The Allenby station works will cause traffic changes on Yehuda Halevy, Mikve Israel, Bezalel Yaffe, Yavne, Shadal and Ramhal streets.

Tel Aviv Light Rail, derailed. Again!

Plans for Tel Aviv’s Light Rail have been put back on the shelf for another six years, beyond the original target date of 2017. Tel Aviv’s Light Rail system, which first part is called the Red Line, consists of two lines and subway tunnels, and it has now been put back on the shelf for another six years, beyond the original target date of 2017.

In an internal report sent to the Finance Ministry, the Dutch auditor for the project, Aegis predicted the Red Line of the new system would not make its first run before 2023. The Green Line, which was to launch in 2020 is allegedly still "on track."

Contributing to the delays are cost overruns totaling up to NIS 3 billion, delays in the project’s timetable, and ongoing staff relations issues plaguing NTA Metropolitan Mass Transit System Ltd General Manager Itzhak Zuchman. The project, which originally was a “build-operate-transfer” (BOT) system held by a consortium led by Africa-Israel Investments Ltd., was nationalized in December 2010 due to financing problems. But the government-set budget of NIS 10.7 billion has already been surpassed, and currently stands at an estimated NIS 14 billion, according to NTA, the government firm responsible for the system’s infrastructure work.

Space-age rapid transit to debut in Tel Aviv

If all goes as planned, within two years Israelis will be the first people to try out a futuristic rapid transport system designed by NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California. The skyTran uses two-person modules that drive along a guide rail suspended from existing power lines. Magnets in the vehicle create a magnetic field around the metal coil inside the rail, causing the vehicle to lift up and glide 60 miles per hour on a cushion of air. The system uses very little energy and potentially could be powered entirely by solar panels. The first route, on which construction could begin next spring, would run from the high-tech center in Atidim through the Tel Aviv University train station to the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Port. Another installation might be placed on Netanya’s congested east side and a third would take people into and around Ariel Sharon Park, a huge public “green belt” in central Israel.

New urban master plan for Tel Aviv approved

The new urban master plan for Tel Aviv-Jaffa was approved earlier this month by the city’s local planning council by a 16-10 vote. The plan lays out, for the first time, what developers can build in the city, where, and how high. It allows for extensive construction of hi-rises and office buildings over the next couple of decades, which will ensure the city a solid tax base in the future.

Many have complained that very little was done to address public transportation issues beyond the existing light rail project and that affordable housing had just not been taken seriously by the city planners. Still any long term vision is better than no vision at all.

The master plan will now go to the district planning committee, where it is expected to undergo further changes. By law, it will then be deposited for formal objections by the public for a period of 60 days, before eventually being approved by the Interior Minister.

For more on the project motivations, here is a presentation from the city council made in 2011.

New financing options to accelerate light rail build-up

A pending compromise between the Tel Aviv Municipality and the government proposes greatly increasing building rights in the city to 700-800% from 400% in exchange for a subway. The increased building rights would generate hundreds of millions in taxes for the government and would offset the huge additional cost in building the light rail's Green Line as a subway.

The increased building rights will not necessary apply to the area along a 2.5-kilometer stretch of the Green Line's route between Carlebach Street and the northern end of Ibn Gvirol Street. The 24-kilometer Green Line will run from Rishon LeZion in the south to the Yarkon River in north Tel Aviv, and may later be extended to Herzliya. The line was originally planned as an above-ground light rail, which Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai opposes. The Tel Aviv Municipality said, "The lot in the Kirya area, along the Red Line, is also relevant to the initiative."

A source involved with the project said that preliminary estimates suggest that the increased building rights will be sufficient to finance the NIS 1.5-2 billion cost of the Green Line. The line could result in the construction of 25,000-30,000 new apartments in the Large Lot in the Transyarkon area of north Tel Aviv. The Tel Aviv Municipality and the Ministry of Finance already agree that the Green Line section between Levinski Street in South Tel Aviv and Carlebach Street would be underground, but they have disagreed for years about the stretch north of Carlebach Street. Officially, the ministry consents only to an above-ground line, and insists that the Tel Aviv Municipality finance the extra cost in full for an underground line. The municipality says that this is not possible.

In addition to the Dan Region Light Rail's Red and Green lines, a Purple Line is in the statutory stages, and four bus rapid transit (BRT) lines are planned. The Tel Aviv Municipality said in response, "The municipality believes that it is very important to build the Green Line, at the same time as the Red Line, as a subway between Levinski Street and the Yarkon River. We believe that maximizing the building rights in the Kirya area can generate the financial sources needed. However, talks are only in the initial stages, and we hope that an agreement can be reached to build the Green Line as quickly as possible."

Source Globes

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

As bike lanes grow, Tel Aviv residents demand voice

After years of pressure from advocacy groups, the Tel Aviv Municipality has finally adopted an aggressively pro-bicycle agenda. Bike lanes are being paved, a bike-share system is being launched, and the city’s PR machine is working hard to sell the new strategy. Yet, the insensitivity and obtuseness which with the new policy is being implemented have already provoked a limited backlash, which, if left unchecked, threatens to endanger the entire project.

Tel Aviv is experiencing a surge of interest in urban cycling. As the number of people choosing to get around the city by bicycle has grown in recent years, so has the municipality’s budget for building new bike lanes. According to a new 5-year plan, close to 40 km of new bike lanes will be paved over the next few years, many of them along central streets. Meanwhile, the city’s bike lanes themselves have gradually evolved from pitiful logos spray painted onto sidewalks to color-coded sidewalk paths, to the elegant street-level, separated lanes built along main streets in the eastern part of the city in recent years.

All of this has engendered a new breed of activists, mostly car owners, who complain that city hall’s newfound enthusiasm for bicycles will lead to the unilateral elimination of dozens of already-scarce parking spots. While still in its infancy, the backlash has already taken on a number of different forms: internet activism, angry exchanges at city council meetings, even a lawsuit.

Tel Aviv is not alone in facing such a backlash. Similar scenarios have played out recently in several other cities around the world. In New York, where the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg is pursuing an ambitious program of urban sustainability, an energetic new transportation commissioner has installed some 400 kilometers of new bike lanes over the last four years, eliminating hundreds of parking spots in the process. While considered by many to be a success – the project has led to a sharp increase in bicycle use while reducing traffic accidents – it has also drawn some very vocal criticism, mainly from a privileged minority of car owners.

Looked at differently, however, perhaps the bike lanes versus parking discourse reflects a false dichotomy. Listen closely to the arguments of opponents and it becomes clear that what really irks them, even more than the loss of a few parking spots, is that no one bothered to include them in the decision-making process. On the other side, the pro-bicycle crowd has conveniently ignored the lack of transparency to which it would normally object.

If this is the case, then perhaps the best way to defuse the anti-bike backlash before it spreads is for the municipality to engage in an open, honest dialogue with the public. This might begin by presenting the city’s 5-year plan for bike lanes – formulated without public participation and never approved by the city council – to the public, while clearly communicating the reasoning behind it and its benefits, and creating space for public input.

Read the rest on +972

More on the Tel Aviv Master Plan

Halfway through his third term in power, Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai is promoting his most ambitious project yet: an ambitious master plan, meant to guide the city’s explosive development over the coming decades. The magnitude of the plan is difficult to overstate; the mayor himself has described it as a “constitution” for the city. Yet, try Googling the master plan and you’ll find almost nothing. Amazingly, despite the enormous impact it is expected to have on the city, the plan has yet to be released to the public in full.

While some information about the contents of the plan is buried deep inside the municipality’s website, the city’s well-oiled PR machine has made no serious effort to bring it to the attention of the general public.

The map on the left however reveals quite a lot. It displays height planning for the city, showing the location of upcoming high rises in dark and evidencing how the plan will transform the city’s skyline beyond recognition. Just click on the map to display the full size version.

While low skylines will be preserved in the centre of town and in parts of Jaffa, areas east of the city center would be transformed into a forest of skyscrapers. In a victory for real estate interests over long-standing opposition by residents, the plan would also allow for extensive high-rise construction in the south of the city, creating multiple corridors of office and residential towers, which would hover awkwardly above existing low-rise neighbourhoods.

Tel Aviv to have transit authority in 2011

Tel Aviv’s opposition party Ir Likulanu (City for All) launched a well-organized assault on Mayor Ron Huldai’s transportation policies, or lack thereof, last night during a meeting of the city council. Huldai, however, came prepared, armed with a well-timed newspaper headline and a motion designed to preempt the opposition’s initiative.

The meeting began with a sharp and impassioned speech by Dr. Noah Efron of Ir Likulanu, who called on the mayor to create a high-level task force charged with identifying concrete and immediate solutions to the city’s transportation problems within 6 months. Efron stressed that he was not calling specifically for implementation of the bus rapid transit (BRT) plan for which his party has been campaigning for several months, but for any solution with the potential to solve the city’s traffic problems in the near future. During his speech, Efron handed Huldai a document containing what he said were signatures of thousands of city residents who support such a system.

The speech drew several rounds of applause from an unusually large audience, many of whom were Ir Likulanu supporters. Following Efron’s speech, Huldai took the podium. “It’s a shame that your speech is based on ignorance and demagoguery,” he began. “You say something needs to be done – why don’t you do something? You say it can be done – why don’t you do it? Don’t lecture me if you don’t know the facts.”

At this point, Huldai’s sarcasm began to draw boos and heckling from the audience. With a nod from the mayor, security guards escorted several of the loudest hecklers out of the hall. Not surprisingly, the mayor suggested that the council remove Efron’s motion from the agenda, which it did. Then Huldai picked up Efron’s petition, and handed it right back to him.

With the opposition’s challenge out of the way, it was time for Huldai to drop his bomb, which was delivered by Deputy Mayor Meital Lehavi (Meretz). (Earlier, with the procedural pettiness typical of city council meetings, Huldai’s coalition had attempted to have Lehavi speak before Efron, a move calculated to preempt his motion. Ir Likulanu protested, however, and Efron was allowed to speak first.)

The big announcement: according to Lehavi, a metropolitan transit authority would be set up in “early 2011.” The authority, she said, would be given the power to plan, administer and supervise public transportation in the metropolis, and had already been agreed to in principle by the Finance and Transportation Ministries. The authority would be staffed by representatives of local authorities and the national government. Accordingly, Huldai had arranged a meeting of the metropolis’ 20 mayors next month to discuss the plan.

Although not stated explicitly, it appeared that Huldai was positioning himself to lead the future authority. Lehavi also proposed the creation of a “lobby” which would advocate for the decentralization of legal powers governing transportation planning from the central government to local authorities, which she invited Efron to join.

The announcement reflected a long-standing demand from Huldai, who has repeatedly claimed that city mayors in Israel do not have the legal power to design transportation systems for their cities. By law, those powers are held by the Transportation Ministry. However, this has not stopped Israel’s other two major cities, Haifa and Jerusalem, from moving forward on their respective mass transit systems, both of which are now nearing completion of their initial phases, while Tel Aviv’s remains stuck.

The reason for this apparently has to do with the respective characters of those cities’ mayors. In the current reality, progress depends on tight coordination between the municipality and the Transportation Ministry, something which Haifa and Jerusalem have evidently achieved, while Huldai’s relationship with the Ministry and its officials has been adversarial and characterized by mutual recriminations.

The move to set up a metropolitan transit authority, which had already been unveiled in that morning’s newspaper, was widely seen as positive. Yet the timing of the move, after a full 12 years of Huldai’s administration doing little or nothing to break through the deadlock, was seen by some city councilors as outrageous.

Source Sustainable City Blog

Tel Aviv Light Rail project back on track

The Tel Aviv area light rail project is back on the rails again - with the state paying for it. Two weeks after cancelling the tender for the MTS franchisee, the government company in charge of the planned public transportation plan, NTA - Metropolitan Mass Transit System, issued a tender on Wednesday for planning the tunnels to be dug. The new budget for the project is NIS 10.7 billion and the new date for the completion of the first section, the Red Line, is scheduled for Dec. 31, 2017.

The new tender came after the finance and transportation ministries approved changing their plan for the tunnels. The new digging method will cut the time needed for the work and not require pumping out groundwater. But there are disadvantages too. The new method will require more work on the surface during construction, which will lead to more traffic jams and other disruptions - in particular within Tel Aviv.

The 23-kilometer Red Line from Bat Yam to Petah Tikva will be divided into three sections. Some 11 kilometers will be underground from Menashiya in south-west Tel Aviv via Jabotinsky Street to Ramat Gan and Bnei Brak, and on to the Geha junction. Out of the 33 planned stations, 23 will be underground, about a kilometer apart on average.

The official approval for funding the light rail project from the state budget will only come after the Sukkot holiday, and will require cabinet approval. The original tender was for a Buy, Operate and Transfer (BOT ) project financed by the tender winner, but MTS ran into financing problems as a result of the global financial crisis.

Wednesday's tender was only for the planning of three large shafts through which the tunnel boring machine would be introduced. The proposed method for tunneling is called "cut and cover," in which the tunneling digs up the surface as it proceeds and then is covered up. This is the method commonly used in Israel for most underground projects up to now. Part of the construction of the new Tel Aviv-Jerusalem high speed rail line is using this method. The tunneling machine will be lowered into the shafts and large underground spaces, through which both building materials and the material dug up will brought in and out.

MTS had proposed "deep mining," in which almost all the work takes place underground. However, due to Tel Aviv's high groundwater level, engineering professionals were worried that not all the possible problems were taken into account in the deep mining proposal.

Source Haaretz