"Noa Tanoa" bus.
Field initiatives stimulated the secular municipalities in Gush Dan to launch Shabbat lines (photo: official website, Shahar Zissou)
Two weeks ago, for the first time, the number of passengers in the Naim project passed the 30,000 mark in one weekend. The project, in which the municipalities of Tel Aviv, Givatayim, Kiryat Ono, Modi'in, Shoham, Ramat Hasharon and Hod Hasharon are partners, provides residents with basic public transportation on days Friday and Saturday, with hundreds of bus trips funded by the municipalities, and without payment to passengers.
The seven municipalities, as well as Ramat Gan, which separately operates a similar service, joined together to overcome the policy of the Ministry of Transportation not to operate public transportation on weekends, except in places where it existed back in the days of the mandate, such as in the Haifa Bay The activity grew out of field initiatives such as the Shabbat bus "Shabus" in Jerusalem and "Noa Tanoa" in the center, and the continuous increase in the number of passengers proves how necessary this service is, for anyone who does not own a car, who prefers to go out to spend time without driving, or who cannot afford the cost of a taxi ride.
A new survey, by the "Movement Israelite" organization, shows that an absolute majority of the Israeli public believes that each local authority should be allowed to decide on its Shabbat public transportation activities in its area, and that the authority to decide on the matter cannot be left to the central government.
"Naim on the weekend" bus. The municipalities in the center appoint the service from their money, to bypass the Ministry of Transportation's refusal to public relations on Shabbat
A pleasant service bus on the weekend. From the Tel Aviv Municipality's Facebook page (Photo: Guy Yehiali)
Today, the Minister of Transportation is allowed to approve the operation of such lines even on Shabbat to transport passengers to hospitals, for example, but for political reasons, the Ministers of Transportation on the right and the left have refrained from exercising their authority.
Even Rabbi Michaeli avoided allowing the cable car, the new public cable car line from the Gulf Central Station to Carmel, to operate on weekends, even though this was in line with the status quo in Haifa, due to the opposition of MK Nir Orbach (the Jewish camp).
Michaeli and the CEO of her office Michal Frank started the process of transferring the powers of operating public transportation to local authorities who will band together to operate it, but the move has not yet been implemented and it is not clear whether the Minister of Transportation Miri Car will allow it to happen, mainly against the background of the opposition of the ultra-Orthodox politicians to implement it.
The survey shows that over half of the public (60 percent of respondents) believe that the decision on public transportation on Shabbat should be in the hands of each local authority in its territory, compared to only about a third (33%) who believe that such a decision should remain in the hands of the central government.
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From the segmentation of the data, it appears that the concept that the decision on public transportation on Shabbat should be in the hands of the local authority is more widespread, as expected, among the secular, those with a high education and a high income.
75 percent of those who define themselves as secular support giving authority over public transportation on Shabbat to the local authority.
However, even among traditionalists there is a majority for this (58%) and among the religious, almost a third (29%) agree.
65% of those with an academic education want to allow the local authority to decide on public transportation on Shabbat, compared to 57% of those with a high school education, and only 53% of those who did not acquire an education beyond high school.
67% of those who earn above the average support granting the right to decide on local transportation on Shabbat.
to the local authority, compared to 66% of those who earn above the average and 33% of those who earn below the average.
"Israeli Movement" is a civil organization whose goal is to strengthen the influence of citizens, to cultivate and train local leadership that listens to the residents and to establish think tanks to solve common problems.
The movement is led by the industrialist Boaz Amitai and Prof. Avner Ben Zaken.
The survey was conducted by the Geocartography company via the Internet among 500 men and women aged 18 and over, from the Jewish and Arab sectors, who constitute a national and representative sample of the population in the State of Israel during December 2022. The range of statistical error is 4.4%.
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