After meeting PM, coalition MK says crisis over transportation fares can be resolved

Following his meeting with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Blue and White MK Michael Biton says that he is hopeful that his transportation reform protest will resolve.

“It was a good meeting and I hope and believe that things will work out,” Biton says after the summit, which also included representatives from the finance and transportation ministries.

Biton, who also chairs the Economic Affairs Committee through which he wants transportation reforms to be discussed, briefly boycotted the coalition three weeks ago after he says the transport ministry bypassed him to propose sweeping changes to the public transportation fare regime. He returned after meeting with Bennett, during which Biton says he gave the premier two weeks to make progress on the issue.

Although Biton continues to press this fight when the coalition is already wounded, he says that his fight is ideological, not political.

“The Prime Minister also knows that this is not a political struggle, but a value-based ​​one,” Biton says. Most of the fare increases involve peripheral areas that have enjoyed significantly lower transport prices. “I can not allow harm to the weak, the Negev and the Galilee,” Biton adds.