Jerusalem fortifies bus stops against car-ramming attacks

The Jerusalem Municipality began the process of erecting steel posts around some 300 bus stops in the city overnight Sunday, in an effort to deter terrorists from carrying out car-ramming attacks against passengers waiting in the stations.

Officials at the municipality said the posts will have the same defensive effect as large concrete blocks placed at some light rail stations in Jerusalem last year.

The posts are slightly over a meter high and are cemented into the sidewalk on all sides of the bus stops. They are spaced widely enough to allow strollers or wheelchairs to pass through.

Not all bus stations will be fortified, however; the municipality is erecting the posts in places defined by police as high-risk locations. The process is expected to take about a month to complete and will cost some NIS 2 million ($500,000).

Israeli and Palestinian laborers place barriers at a bus stop in Jerusalem on December 20, 2015, after a terror attack there last week. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The plan was presented by Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat to Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz following a car ramming terror attack last week at the entrance to Jerusalem.

The implementation began after receiving approval from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and is funded by the Transportation Ministry.

Following the Second Intifada in the early 2000s, bus stops walls that were made of large panes of thick glass were replaced with mesh-like iron sheets. At the time, with Palestinian suicide bombings a common occurrence, Israeli officials concluded that the glass windows increased the number of casualties as shattered glass was added to the shrapnel from the explosion.