This week turned into a week of excitement in Gush Dan with the start of the light rail movement, which opened today (Friday) to the general public. This is the beginning of a promise made more than a century ago to inherit the bustling Tel Aviv metropolis with an advanced mass transit system. The excavation and construction work began somewhere in the summer of 2015, and eight years later, with an investment of billions, an exceeding budget, a lot of dust and many businesses that suffered - the project was launched.
The light rail is in motion, this week (Photo: Reuven Castro)
The only load so far has been recorded in archives documenting the failed attempts to advance the project and filled to the brim with master plans. These initiatives encapsulate truths that every Israeli knows about our administration's ability to be slow, bureaucratic and unpredictable. It turns out that even 70 years ago, it was much easier for a politician to make promises than to keep them.
The dream of urban-public transportation existed long before the time of the first Hebrew city, at the end of the 19th century. The idea was first proposed at the end of 1892 by a Lebanese engineer named Frangieh, who sought during Ottoman rule to promote an urban railway in Jaffa. The scholar of Palestine, Prof. Shmuel Avitzur, detailed in his research that in early November 1892, two months after the inauguration of the Jaffa-Jerusalem railway, Frangieh submitted a plan for laying an urban railway in Jerusalem and suburbs to Ein Kerem and Bethlehem.
He did not rest, and three weeks later he submitted a detailed plan for laying an urban railway in Jaffa. Avizur located the project file for the "Tramway project in the city of Jaffa", which indicates that the idea was to promote "horses", wagons transported on tracks and towed by horses.
Diagram of the planned train in Jaffa in 1892 (Photo: Scan, from an article by Prof. Shmuel Avitzur)
The unusual idea was ignored, and the vision of the railway remained orphaned until it was built alongside Jaffa and Tel Aviv. In 1913, Moshe Abarbanel, a successful businessman from Ukraine, arrived in the city. Shula Widrich, a researcher of the history of Tel Aviv and a tour guide in the city, says that Abarbanel wanted to contribute to the development of the city and establish a profitable venture. His idea was to build a tramway in the young city.
Abarbanel approached the head of the committee, Meir Dizengoff, with the idea he had conceived, but the latter cooled his enthusiasm and explained to him that there was no point in such a transportation project for a neighborhood of 200 houses. Dizengoff suggested to the energetic entrepreneur to establish a house of culture. And so, for the first time, and as we know not the last in Tel Aviv's history, the railway project was abandoned. Instead of a pretentious transportation enterprise, Tel Aviv won its first cinema in 1914. Abravanel adopted Dizengoff's proposal and established a house of culture, which later became the Eden Cinema Theater.
But in the city there was non-stop railway activity, albeit for a short period of only eight years. Chen Melling, director of the Israel Railways Archives and Museum, says that as part of the construction of a railway line from Jaffa to Lod and the area where Glilot Junction is located today, the British laid a track during World War I. This was an internal railway line that served between 1928-1920 mainly for transporting cargo from Jaffa Port to the Jaffa Railway Station (known today as the entertainment and commercial complex - "HaTachana "). After the end of the war, the railway was no longer essential and the project was shut down.
60 cm railway at the end of the port, Jaffa, 1929 (Photo: Scan, courtesy of the Railway Museum)
Already in 1936, the frustration of the Jewish community with the missing train became so common that the poet Nathan Alterman wrote a poem about it:
Once again the future reached out to us
with a little finger and again evaded, the villain!
We've almost won a subway
and here's a disappointment...
Too bad...
That same year, Davar quoted the newspaper Al-Liwa, which was defined as the "Mufti newspaper." According to the publication, titled "Killing the village and reviving the colony," Tulkarm officials reported on a "Zionist plan for an electric railway between Tel Aviv and Haifa." It was reported that a tram line between Tel Aviv and Haifa would pass "in the Sharon Lowlands". It was also noted that Pinchas Rotenberg began to move large columns and stretch the necessary wires. According to the report, the government encountered difficulties due to a dispute between the authorities and the family over "a piece of land on the seashore."
60 cm track on Jaffa Street, 12.10.1920 (Photo: Scan, Mattson Collection, Library of Congress)
The idea of a train between Tel Aviv and Haifa came up again after the establishment of the state. This time it was a subway. Minister of Labor and Construction Mordechai Bentov of Mapam presented an ambitious development plan for the newly established state during the interim government in August 1948. Among other things, the plan included a subway between Tel Aviv and Haifa. He promised that the journey would take 45 minutes and that crowded housing would be built along the train. He also spoke on the transportation program about "a highway from Aqaba to Metula." This was presented about six months before the elections for the first Knesset, and the newspaper HaTzofa wondered whether this was a "development plan or an election economy."
In the 50s, the young country was preoccupied with absorbing huge waves of immigration and burning security problems. The issue of mass transit in Tel Aviv rarely surfaced in those years; Like in June 1952, when a "debate about the movement" arose in the Tel Aviv City Council. One council member for the General Zionists was recorded in the minutes as insisting on the need for a subway "to prevent a transportation shortage in 1960." He said that "only an underground train that will continue on two lines along Allenby Street and along Hayarkon Street to Jaffa will save the situation." In May 1956, the city council approved a budget for a survey on the possibilities of building a subway in Tel Aviv. According to the Herut newspaper, this is "another stage in the extensive activity of the municipal administration for the development of Israel's largest city."
Diagram of the route of the train in Tel Aviv as presented in the Davar newspaper, 1965 (Photo: Scan, Davar newspaper)
It seems that in the 60s, the vision of the Tel Aviv subway was within reach. The plan was raised and discussed many times, plans were planned, promises were made and decision makers repeatedly spoke of the need to establish the ambitious transportation project. Private entrepreneurs also recognized the need, and the Herut newspaper noted in August 1960 that a Ramat engineer had set out to negotiate with companies in Europe for the construction of a subway. The article noted that the company is interested in being the first to submit a master plan for an underground rail network to the Tel Aviv municipality.
Six months later, in February 1961, it was promised that the Paris Metro Company would prepare a survey of the Tel Aviv subway. Even then, however, some expressed doubts about the ongoing promises. A spokesman for the Tel Aviv municipality was then forced to reply with a letter to the editor of a newspaper that stung the municipality and stated that while they were making dreams, Haifa already had the Carmelit.
"In general, by the way of justified praise for the Haifa municipality, there is no need to criticize another municipality that is looking for ways to solve some of the traffic problems in the city," the municipality spokesman said. He also mentioned that the two engineers of the Paris metro are in Tel Aviv for the planning process, adding that the municipality is also discussing the idea of building a "monorail," a train that moves on a beam stretched between pillars.
Light rail works, Tel Aviv. July 2015 (Photo: Reuven Castro)
The discussion heated up and tunnel mining seemed to be approaching. In July 1964, Transportation Minister Yisrael Bar-Yehuda promised that "the planning of the train will take another year, then a year of preparations will come, and within two years we will begin excavation." When asked about the position of the bus companies, whose profits were expected to decrease with the construction of the subway, the minister replied: "They will be partners in the installation of the subway, or they will not enter into a partnership. The train will be built from anywhere."
In light of the skepticism, Transportation Ministry officials hastened to give an interview to Davar newspaper that same month. According to them, the "bottom" will carry itself financially and will not need external support. "The purpose of the 'bottom' is to transport the public according to its needs and not to serve as a 'tourist museum' thanks to its architectural splendor," they said. "Multiple and complicated engineering problems are expected, such as the city's water level." The cost of paving per kilometer will be 30-25 million liras, but this investment will pay off in light of the many expenses incurred, which will still be caused by the use of private vehicles. They even suggested "charging a special levy to private vehicle owners for the construction of the subway. The private vehicle created the conditions that compel its mining, its owners will participate in financing it," they ruled.
In October 1965, a joint committee of the Tel Aviv Municipality and the Ministry of Transport was appointed, following the visit of Transportation Minister Moshe Carmel to the municipality. Before the visit, the Paris metro experts submitted to the mayor a first plan of the subway route. The minister declared: "We are adopting the plan to install the Tel Aviv subway irrevocably. The transportation facility is already needed by it now and will be needed by the entire Dan region in the future." The estimated price per kilometer has risen to 36.5 million liras at this point. The municipal administration and the minister agreed that there is no way to solve Tel Aviv's traffic problems without a subway.
Only the paper remains
It was not only the French who were involved in the plans. According to Davar, "The news regarding the planning of a subway in Tel Aviv was widely publicized in the British press." A British delegation visited Israel, met with the Minister of Transport and the Mayor of Tel Aviv, and its members expressed interest in building the subway.
Following the delegation's visit, Herut strongly criticized the project's conduct in October 1965 under the headline "Subway or Election Train," Yehudit Winkler wrote that Mayor Mordechai Namir had already spoken in 1962 at the Engineering Club about the idea of a monorail and about a study conducted in the project, according to which a 16 km route with 11 intermediate stations would be built from the center of Petah Tikva, along Petah Tikva Road to the Central Bus Station and from there to Bat Yam and Holon. She mentions another speech "full of promises for the future" by the mayor, on the same subject, and concludes: "Of all the plans and studies and studies, only the paper on which the speech was printed remains."
"We only heard announcements about engineers coming and going. What is the status of the plans, at what stage they are located, what is the final proposed route - all these are apparently considered secrets that the municipality does not know about. The descriptions from the municipality about the coming and going experts, about investors showing interest in the subway, have the power to confuse the mind of the citizen and create the false impression that the municipal apparatus that handles traffic and transportation is working full steam to approach the construction of a subway today or tomorrow, or a monorail, or both. If this dance is stopped, the municipality will announce what it actually has, how far the plans have progressed and what they are."
Light rail works on HaRakevet Street, Tel Aviv. July 2015 (Photo: Reuven Castro)
Towards the end of the 60s, the interest in the underground project moderated, but did not disappear completely; In June 1969, Transportation Minister Moshe Carmel said that within a year a decision would be made regarding the Tel Aviv subway, "as the only way out that could overcome the problem of urban transportation and prevent it from being completely clogged."
In February 1970, Tel Aviv Mayor Yehoshua Rabinowitz was interviewed on the television program "Moked" and said that "there will be no escape from building a subway in Tel Aviv." But the enthusiasm that characterized the 60s seems to be waning. The mayor added in the same interview that "its construction can only be discussed in five to ten years, since in the current situation this is not possible, although there are financial entities willing to lend money for this purpose."
Israel is mired in a war of attrition. The subject of the train is barely mentioned. In July 1970, the Knesset held a discussion on transportation problems, during which Transportation Minister Ezer Weizmann left to visit his son, who had been severely injured in the canal. MKs wish him and the other wounded IDF soldiers a recovery. MK Avraham Shechterman (Gahal), who a decade earlier was deputy mayor of Tel Aviv, wants to "hasten the construction of a subway in Tel Aviv."
At the beginning of 1971, Deputy Transportation Minister Gad Yaakobi informed Mayor Rabinovich that "the establishment of a planning unit for the construction of a subway in Tel Aviv must be approached immediately, in order to reach a decision as soon as possible on how to build it." Yaakobi added that "the decision comes in force of reality, because there is no other alternative to developing a mass transit system." At the same meeting, a master plan for transportation in metropolitan Tel Aviv is presented for the umpteenth time.
Maariv Bridge after it was blown up in 2015 (Photo: Maged Gozani)
Video: The red line of the Gush Dan light rail will go on a test drive - on Friday it will open to passengers (Niv Aharonson)
Rabinovich begins to lose hope, and in September 1972 mentions that "the only real solution to Tel Aviv's transportation problems is to build a subway. There's no escaping it. We are already overdue and I regret that the government has not yet given the green light to begin planning. From planning to completion it will take 8-7 years. It would be a disaster if the green light is not given soon."
In April 1973, the government picked up the gauntlet and Prime Minister Golda Meir announced that the subway project would be examined by a team of ministers that included Transportation Minister Shimon Peres, Interior Minister Yosef Burg and Finance Minister Pinchas Sapir. But the long-awaited "green light" never came.
Since then, residents have remained full of promises. Years have passed and only 8 years after the first excavations began in Tel Aviv in 2015, only the first of three lines of the railway was launched, which should, at least on paper, facilitate and provide a public transportation solution that everyone is crying out for.
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