A government committee gives final authorization for a controversial plan to build a cable car to the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City.
The project is green-lighted by the ministerial committee on planning, construction, land and housing.
The cable car is billed as a tourism attraction as well as a solution to serious traffic congestion and pollution around the Old City walls.
Up to 3,000 people will be ferried per hour at peak time in up to 72 10-person cabins between the First Station commercial area and the Old City’s Dung Gate, near the Western Wall.
The planned cable car to Jerusalem’s Old City, as seen in a screenshot from a video by the NGO Emek Shaveh.
However, architects, academics, preservation experts and tour guides have heaped scorn on the scheme. They have called it a poorly-thought-out, Disneyesque idea that will scar the historic landscape with 15 massive pylons, sully unique views of the Old City and its walls — a UNESCO World Heritage Site — and do little to solve the traffic problems.
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