First run-in trip on the new section of the light rail line in Jerusalem with the participation of the Minister of Transportation Miri Regev and the Mayor of Jerusalem Moshe Leon, January 16, 2023/Yinon Shalom Yathach
"Adding high-rise buildings on the light rail route will lead to the collapse of infrastructure," Jerusalem City Council member Yehuda Freudiger, a member of the Planning and Construction Committee, announced today (Tuesday).
According to him, "the light rail will not be able to withstand the loads when there is a limit of four minutes between trains because it has to pass between the roads, which will cause traffic chaos in Jerusalem."
It should be noted that even today the light rail does not meet the passenger load.
Currently it is a shortened line between Pisgat Ze'ev and Mount Herzl, while in the near future the train will extend the line from the Neve Ya'akov neighborhood to the Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital.
Freudiger claims that residents in the neighborhoods where the train passes will not be able to get on the trains that will be full of passengers from the neighborhoods from which the train left (each neighborhood with tens of thousands of residents), when 30-story towers will be built on each axis of the train line, and recently they have already requested to go up to 40 stories with parking One in the optimal case for each family.
The Beit HaKerem neighborhood in Jerusalem, near the light rail, March 25, 2020/Flash 90, Olivier Fitosi
Furthermore, Freudiger claims, that the only solution is a subway and without it one must not rely on the light rail which will simply collapse in front of the number of passengers, what is more, there must be an interval of four minutes between trains because it travels through intersections and on central roads in the city.
In addition to the fact that the light rail, even with the addition of routes, will not provide a solution, the congestion on the roads will also increase and become unbearable.
Fridger explained that during his sitting in planning committees, a transportation expert arrives who says that apparently an addition of 200 vehicles will not affect the load in a significant way, but in most cases other similar projects on the same street are ignored.
According to him, an addition of 200 vehicles is tolerable, but 1000 additional vehicles on the same street is a completely different matter.
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