Transportation minister: Fast Tel Aviv-Jerusalem rail link due in 2018

A new half-hour train link between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv will open in 2018, changing the lives of thousands of Israelis, Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud) said on Tuesday.

The two cities, which account for the majority of the country’s economic activity, are nearly 70 kilometers (44 miles) apart but are currently served only by a 90-minute winding railway line on a route designed during the British mandate.

Road traffic can be badly congested at peak times, with the journey taking up to two hours.

The much-delayed new train service will shuttle passengers at up to 160 kilometers per hour from early 2018, Katz told journalists during a tour of an underground tunnel.

Built under Israeli control in conjunction with Chinese, Italian and Russian companies, the new line is an important part of the “public transport revolution” under way in Israel, Katz said.

The service will also stop at Ben Gurion International Airport, 10 kilometers east of Tel Aviv.

At peak times, there will be four trains an hour in both directions.

Israel Railways director Boaz Tzafrir said they expected 4,000 passengers during rush hour, 50,000 per day and more than 10 million a year on the new service.

Public transport in Israel is based mainly on buses, with no metro systems.

Its railway infrastructure is underdeveloped in relation to high population density, leading to significant congestion, a January report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on the country’s economy concluded.

Trains comprise just 6 percent of public transport, compared to 30 to 60 percent in many other OECD countries, the report said.

The fast line project was launched in 2004 by former premier Ariel Sharon, who died in 2014.

But work began only in 2010 because of pressure from environmental protection associations.

Project director Dror Sofero called the new line an engineering feat, with its 40 kilometers of tunnels and eight bridges.

Katz has been embroiled in recent weeks in a political tussle with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who heads the Likud party, over work on the train line over the Shabbat.

Netanyahu has been under pressure from his ultra-Orthodox coalition partners to ban work scheduled to take place over the weekend, after they threatened to topple his coalition if work continued on Shabbat.

As with much other public transportation in the country, trains do not run from Friday afternoon to Saturday night, but repair work considered vital has generally been allowed with the government’s approval.

On Tuesday, The High Court of Justice issued an interim injunction permitting Israel Railways to continue work on Shabbat, nullifying Netanyahu’s controversial order to halt the work.