Why the sinkhole in Ayalon could be the best thing that happened to transportation in Israel

It is not the first nor the last sinkhole, but it is the one that most clearly illustrates the unhealthy dependence of an entire country on the private car and the lack of alternatives

Kenan Cohen

09/18/2022

Sunday, September 18, 2022, 02:52 Updated: 05:58

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A sinkhole opens in Ayalon lanes (Walla system!)

It is very doubtful whether those who face the huge traffic jams in Gush Dan following the hole in Ayalon will find solace in this, but this hole exposes the nakedness of the broken transportation system of Gush Dan in the micro and of the State of Israel in the macro.

The section of asphalt that disappeared creates a simulation of the transportation future in Gush Dan as if you were jumped a few years ahead to witness an ordinary morning.

Because saying every once in a while "there have always been traffic jams, but in the last few years it's something..." Everyone knows, but recognizing that this rapid deterioration is a snowball that is not going to stop in the foreseeable future and will only get bigger on its way, is already a thought that most people prefer to ignore and suppress her.

Then came the sinkhole.

It doesn't matter if in the end the work on Azrieli's fourth tower is found to be the one that caused the sinkhole to form - the lesson from this story is not related to construction engineering or infrastructure, it is related to the transportation concept of the State of Israel.

Because it showed how a strategically located pit can disrupt the daily routine of millions of downtown residents at once.

The hole is not the problem, the problem is what moves around it (photo: Walla! system, Uri Sela)

A disruption that is not only manifested in the closure of Ayalon, but also in the shutdown of the nearby railroads by order of the police (and rightly so in the first stage until the tests are completed) and when the railroads are shut down at a point that is the link between the north of the country and the south, and east to Jerusalem - we understand that draining all the main railroads to this point was a historical mistake .

It is indeed being repaired with the eastern rail project that will allow trains to flow without entering Tel Aviv, but its target date - 2026 is very far in terms of a change that should have been made a long time ago.

Another point concerns the timing of the opening of the sinkhole.

We couldn't have asked for a better time than Saturday noon for such a case.

Because if such an event occurs during one of Ayalon's off-peak hours and leaves enough time to prepare and warn for the Sunday morning car tsunami, try to think what would have happened if this event had come 24 hours later just before peak traffic on the road when tens of thousands of cars were trapped in this section in traffic Huge dimensions, when dozens of trains pass on the nearby track route and affect other trains moving at the same time.

How the local incident due to a small pothole in minutes spreads like a destructive wave in the nearby intersections, in the main, side streets, at the exits from the parking lots of the commercial centers and houses.

Within an hour Gush Dan is besieged, there is no going out and no coming in a traffic flounder of a suffocating lap.

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Imagine the collapse not at noon on Saturday, but at the peak of rush hour (Photo: Reuven Castro)

Now open your eyes and look into the not-too-distant future.

Because in the future this threat scenario is not a one-off phenomenon caused by a sinkhole, but will be the day-to-day reality that accompanies private transportation in Gush Dan, which according to the forecasts will number about 5.4 million people in 2040 (about 4 million today).

And those who try to console themselves with the fact that by then we will have a metro system and a light rail network that will take cars off the road, let them console themselves.

He will be comforted and also remember the timetables in which such projects are conducted in Israel (to remind you, Golda Meir spoke about the story of the metro in 1971. The first international tender was issued in 2016...).

Not because he won't be up by then, maybe he is, both he and the completion of all the light rail lines that should help him.

This may happen because a change involving weaning people from private cars and moving them to public transport is not something that happens overnight or even within a few years.

It involves, like any rehab from addiction, the agony of changing habits, changing the perception of public transportation as something for those who cannot afford cars, of changing the perception of the private car itself as a legitimate means of transportation in a dense urban space where the road is a scarce resource.

Until the relief of the light rail and the metro will take a lot more time that we don't have (Photo: Reuven Castro)

It's a change that not only the citizens have to go through but also the state.

The one who for decades became addicted to the easy money that car owners put in their pockets.

It has promoted private car-biased planning in every possible branch of its business - starting with generous benefits such as the inclusion of car expenses in the salary of its employees, such as giving a free hand to erect residential towers with huge parking lots at their base, approving the construction of neighborhoods where there is no planning for public transportation or community services within walking distance of them as an integral part From their basic plans, expanding more and more roads while ignoring the fact that more roads invite more cars and traffic jams and all the while the systematic starvation and neglect of public transportation.

The hunger and neglect that caused the working conditions there to be disgraceful, that drove people away from wanting to fulfill this important role.

Neglect that resulted in an elementary project like the electrification of the railroads, which was done decades ago in the world, started only a few years ago after the Ministry of Transportation failed to allow the only company that knows how to manage such projects - the railway itself - the tools to do it.

And the necessary and important electrification project and the necessary general disruption it brought about is an excellent example of how the only means of public transportation that managed to bring the citizens to make significant use of it was forced to brake emergency braking and enter a period of renovations and improvements precisely when it improves in the public's trust in it.

Now go and convince a resident of Haifa who works in the center to abandon the car again after years in which he cannot trust the train to bring him to his destination on time or at all.

The sinkhole in Ayalon and the upheaval it brings with it is a warning signal for how an entire country goes into a panic attack due to one not very large infrastructure defect.

The sinkhole in Ayalon is the small hole in the molar tooth that the State of Israel ignored and now destroys its entire routine.

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