Railway 431 Bridge over Highway No. 1 whose work has been stalled for five months/Odi Etzion
The work on the railway bridge on the new railway 431 is finally resuming, after a political delay of six months.
Today at 17:30 the Inaba interchange on Highway 1 will be closed for 23.5 hours, for the purpose of works that will enable the connection of the parts of the bridge.
The blockade will continue until tomorrow at 17:00, in both directions of travel.
Traffic will be directed to road 431. Passengers from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv are advised to use road 443 which bypasses the works.
In August, Miri Regev stopped the work at the last minute, when the police forces and contractors were already on site, following requests from ultra-Orthodox Knesset members who were happy about the desecration of the Sabbath.
The professional officials preferred to carry out the works that require the closure of a major road in the country on the weekend when the traffic is sparse, instead of blocking it in the middle of the week and causing huge traffic jams.
However, reality won out over politics: continuing to leave the bridge unconnected above the road could have endangered the road's passengers by the collapse of parts of it, or of the parts of the construction supporting it.
At the end of the week, some of the constructions will be dismantled so that it will be possible to complete the bridge in a hurry, with the intention of avoiding further closures of the road.
The Israel Railways stated that "in the last few hours, there has been a lively discussion regarding work on Shabbat on road number 1 in the 431 railway project. The works received the approvals from all the relevant parties while maintaining the status quo. The works are within the scope of supervision and saving human lives."
The 431 track project will allow for the first time direct travel by train from Jerusalem and Mamodiin to the Shefala, with stations in Ramla and Rishon Lezion, and with a new station that will serve the employment and commercial area in Mo'in Sorek, and will allow many people to get to work by train.
The project, which when it started was promised to open in 2026, is now scheduled to open only in 2028.
Map of closure of the Inba interchange this weekend: travelers on Route 1 can travel to Route 431 and take Persa/Netiv Israel
As you may recall, in January the Movement for the Quality of Government addressed the Minister of Transportation Miri Regev in a scathing letter and claimed that delaying the completion of the railway bridge is political and not business-related.
"An administrative authority that exercises governmental authority must take into account relevant considerations, and those only. It must be based on substantive considerations only and avoid extraneous considerations. To the extent that the Minister of Transportation's decision to refrain from connecting the parts of the bridge stems from political pressures exerted on it, and not from substantive considerations concerning the promotion of a project that has been invested in A lot of money and intended to serve many sections of the country's citizens - after all, this is an invalid decision motivated by extraneous considerations," lawyers Tomer Naor, director of the legal department, and Rotem Babli Dvir, director of the administrative litigation department in the movement, wrote to Regev.
The Movement for the Quality of Government stated that "We are happy to see that the demand we made to the Minister of Transportation has been accepted. Closing the Inaba Interchange to traffic will allow the works that have been frozen for a long time due to political pressures to be carried out. This is an important first step in the right direction, which will allow the progress of this important public transportation project. A wait of half Shana has already caused significant economic and transportation damage that will be difficult to repair, but we hope that from now on the work will be done continuously, without further interruptions, until the train lines are operating as normal."
Uri Kider, CEO of Free Israel, said that "We congratulate the Ministry of Transportation, Israel Railways and the Ministry of Economy for the correct and obvious decision that in the State of Israel it is not possible to block a main road in the middle of the week.
Even if with a delay of six months, it is better late than never, and it seems that even under the most religious and extreme government there is still a drop of reason left.
Even if someone tries to take our lives to the 18th century, he will not succeed."
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Israel Railways
Miri Regev