Merav Michaeli, Minister of Transportation and Chairman of the Labor Party, launched a reform of public transportation with Finance Minister Lieberman.
The reform itself does not bring in money but distributes the cake differently.
The reform is called "Equal Land", and the Ministry of Transportation's website claims that it corrects historical distortions and leads to the creation of transport justice.
Has "transport justice" really been created here?
If we dive into the data, we will discover a different country.
Today, most public transportation customers in Israel cannot travel without a "multi-line" ticket.
So far, all users have won a significant 25 percent accumulated value discount.
That is - you claimed a ticket for NIS 100?
You received travel for NIS 125.
This assumption is null and void.
The cancellation saves the state treasury NIS 200 million.
Are these sums invested back in public transportation?
It seems not.
The reform heralds an exemption from payment for those aged 75 and over.
On the face of it, this sounds like a great "lollipop" - the elderly of Israel will receive free travel on public transportation.
Bus stops and main stations are inaccessible.
Over the years, the Ministry of Transportation has been delaying their accessibility and harming the population of the disabled and the elderly.
Therefore, thank you for the discount, but over the age of 75, the average Israeli senior finds it difficult to enjoy it.
Traveling by public transport (those photographed have nothing to do with what was said), Photo: Naama Stern
Wait, so basically everyone will pay more because of the new reform?
Unequivocally yes.
For example, anyone who travels by train will pay more.
Much of the reform is intended to move passengers from the train to buses, without investing in buses that are already under heavy load.
The reason is probably the figure that emerges from the State Comptroller's report: 80 percent of public transport users in 2017-2010 preferred to travel by train, compared to only 14 percent who preferred, in those years, to travel by bus. Move passengers from the train to the bus - through the pocket, and they call it "transport justice".
Maybe in the periphery a little justice will be done?
For those who live more than 40 km from a nearby metropolis?
No.
They too will pay more.
Those who have paid through the accumulated value a relatively reasonable price on long journeys, will pay more.
The farther a person lives, the worse his reform will be.
"Transport justice" should embody the possibility of cheap and reasonable travel for every person in our little Israel, where the distances from one end of the country to the other are so small in international terms that it is simply funny at all to refer to them as the periphery.
Instead of generating significant priority for those who live far from the center, instead of strengthening and increasing the infrastructure of Israel Railways and buses - the reform tries to save hundreds of millions of shekels of "accumulated value", without investing them back in real reform that will allow cheap and accessible travel from anywhere to anywhere.
And a word on the margins: Many of Israel's public transportation passengers belong to the working class, who do not earn high wages.
The Labor Party has been trying for years to reach these audiences, who are represented all over the world by workers' parties.
When this public understands the reality through their pocket, they will also understand who not to vote for in the next election.
Were we wrong?
Fixed!
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