TEL AVIV - The Tel Aviv district committee for planning and construction has approved the proposed subway route in Tel Aviv, overriding a previous plan that called for a street-level train.
The decision, which calls for the route to extend along Ibn Gvirol Street, was taken despite the Treasury’s the Transportation ministry’s objection to a subway, on the grounds that the endeavor would not be profitable.
However, officials in Tel Aviv and environmental groups were pushing for an underground train, arguing that a street-level train would undermine local residents’ quality of life.
Following the decision, municipal officials promised to undertake works in a bid to upgrade Ibn Gvirol Street, one of Tel Aviv’s major thoroughfares, for the benefit of pedestrians.
Residents have been waiting for decades
However, despite the latest decision, local residents are likely to keep their excitement in check, as the decision to build a subway in Tel Aviv goes back to the early 1970s and former Prime Minister Golda Meir’s era.
Former Tel Aviv Mayor Ronnie Milo promised in his 1993 campaign to undertake the ambitious project during his term in office and vowed to inaugurate the first subway station in 1998.
Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even laid the cornerstone for the project, but not even one subway tunnel had been dug since that time.
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