As part of the convening to approve the 2024 state budget, which changed dramatically following the Iron Sword War, the Ministry of Transport cut its budget in order to finance the war and rehabilitate the envelope.
However, the main projects for maintaining transportation continuity have maintained their budgets: the "Connecting Israel" railway project (which includes the construction of a railway network for passengers and cargo, from Kiryat Shmona to Eilat), designated budgets for rehabilitating red roads in the periphery and in the center and turning them into safe roads, funding "safety baskets" (budgets that are immediately available to solve life-saving safety problems), and budgets for rehabilitating transportation infrastructure in the Gaza envelope – all as part of understandings between the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Finance.
Israel Railways. A railway network will be built from Kiryat Shmona to Eilat, Photo: Yehoshua Yosef
50% discount for residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods
According to these understandings, the "transportation justice" reform, which the Ministry of Finance sought to cancel as part of the across-the-board cuts in government ministries, will also be implemented in 2024. This reform reduces public transportation prices by 50% for residents of neighborhoods belonging to socioeconomic cluster 1-5 of the Central Bureau of Statistics, and is considered Minister Miri Regev's flagship project.
Alongside all this, it was decided that all the infrastructure companies of the Ministry of Transport will bear the budgetary burden and contribute hundreds of millions of shekels from their organizational budget, which are supposed to be transferred to finance the iron sword war in support of the home front.
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