HSBC and Leumi to provide $1.1 billion in financing for Tel Aviv purple light rail
Line will run from the eastern part of the Tel Aviv metropolitan area via Ramat Gan and Givatayim to the city center
Sharon Wrobel is a tech reporter for The Times of Israel.
Israel has secured €1 billion ($1.1 billion) in financing from UK banking giant HSBC and Israel’s Bank Leumi to start building an overground light rail line in the greater Tel Aviv area.
HSBC and Bank Leumi will provide the consortium – made of Israel’s Shapir Group and Spain’s CAF (Spain) – that has won the tender for planning, designing and building the purple light rail line, with €1 billion in financing, according to a joint statement by the Finance Ministry and the Transportation Ministry.
With the final closure of the financing on Tuesday, the Shapir-CAF consortium will be able to start working on the construction of the light rail infrastructure and technological systems and order the tram cars, after winning the tender for the project about a year ago.
The planned Tel Aviv purple light rail line will run from the eastern part of the Tel Aviv metropolitan area to transport passengers from Yehud, Kiryat Ono, via Ramat Gan and Givatayim to the center of Tel Aviv, stopping at Bar Ilan University, Sheba Medical Center, and Shuk Hacarmel. It will span 29 kilometers (18 miles) and stop at 46 stations at a frequency of four minutes carrying about 256,000 passengers a day. The purple line is forecast to be delayed at least three years beyond its original 2027 expected launch date.
The government hailed the closure of the financing as a “vote of confidence” in the Israeli economy. The financing provided by the banks is part of so-called ‘green financing’, in which a financial institution finances projects of an environmental nature, with the aim of taking vehicles off the road and encouraging public transportation, according to the joint statement.
The purple line is part of the planned Gush Dan Tel Aviv greater area transportation network, with a total of three light rail lines stretching across 90 kilometers (56 miles), which includes the red line and green line. The red line of the Tel Aviv light rail, which will travel from Petah Tikva to Bat Yam via Tel Aviv, was slated to open at the end of April. Facing some delays, the opening is expected in the coming weeks. The green line is planned to run across 39 kilometers (24 miles) from Rishon Lezion and Holon in the south to Herzliya in the north with four kilometers (2.5 miles) of underground tracks in Tel Aviv.
“It is encouraging to see that during these days leading international financial entities have found the Gush Dan light rail to be a reliable and stable long-term project,” said Transport and Road Safety Minister Miri Regev. “The completion of the light rail lines, including the purple line, will give people a reason to abandon their private vehicles in favor of reliable and accessible transportation.”
“Once we close the gap in the investments that must be made in the country’s infrastructure, we will reduce road congestion, disperse the population, disperse employment areas, and lower the cost of living,” Regev added.
NTA Metropolitan Mass Transit System, the government-run company in charge of the light rail network is also at the helm of the metro line project in the greater Tel Aviv area. The construction of the three metro lines with a total length of 150 kilometers (93 miles) is expected to cost about NIS 150 billion ($41 billion) over a period of 15 years.
The underground system is expected to significantly ease traffic congestion in Israel’s financial and cultural heart, which has few public transportation options beyond buses, shared taxi vans and an intercity commuter rail.
If completed as planned, the light rail and subway network will cover the entire Tel Aviv metropolitan area with 240 kilometers (149 miles) of track and hundreds of stations, linking Ra’anana and Kfar Saba north of the city, to Rishon Lezion and Rehovot to its south, as well as Lod, Ramle, Ben Gurion Airport and everywhere in between.
