Bus lanes coming to Gush Dan
In individual agreements with the Transport Ministry, 6 cities in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area are taking part in the first stage of a program designed to grant priority to public transit over private cars throughout the region.
The first stage of revolutionizing Israel's bus lanes has begun in Gush Dan (the Tel Aviv metropolitan area) and the Sharon plain (located north of Gush Dan). Under the scheme, called "Mahir ba'ir" ("fast in the city"), hundreds of kilometers of dedicated bus lanes will be created in 20 cities located in Gush Dan and around it. Inside the cities, shared lanes and street parking will be converted to bus lanes, and outside of the cities, new lanes for public transit will be constructed.
The scheme is intended to create a new metropolitan network that grants priority to public transportation, bicycles and scooters and also preserves the continuity of bus lanes between the cities.
An agreement was signed over the weekend with the first 6 cities who have met the criteria set by the Ministry of Transport: Bat Yam, Hod Hasharon, Holon, Lod, Kiryat Ono, and Ramla,. More than 50 kilometers total of bus lanes will be added in those cities at a cost of approximately one billion shekels.
In the next two months, the Ministry of Transport is expected to sign similar agreements with Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, Givatayim, and Bnei Brak. Further in the future, agreements are expected with Petah Tikva, Ramat Hasharon, Herzliya, Ra'anana, Kfar Saba, Givat Shmuel, Yehud, Or Yehuda, Modi'in and Rishon Lezion.
The scheme is funded in its entirety by the Ministry of Transport. In addition, the ministry is promoting the project with a series of incentives and benefits to local authorities. The incentives are to be allocated in accordance with the authority's level of cooperation and the depth and quality of the preference that it grants to the public transit network.
All these authorities are supposed to receive benefits and incentives valued as some 15% of the entire project's cost. This money may be used to upgrade components of the project, such as street furniture and lighting, and also for transportation projects in the city.
The scheme includes granting priority to buses, both in infrastructure and at traffic lights, automatic ticketing and passenger boarding at all bus doors, improved information provided at bus stops, improved infrastructure and accessibility for pedestrians surrounding the stops, and establishing bicycle lanes alongside the majority of the planned priority lanes.
In all the bus lanes to be established, enforcement cameras will be installed to be run by municipal inspectors, who will be authorized to write tickets for drivers who park or drive in the bus lanes. A law initiated by Minister of Transport Yisrael Katz authorizes municipal inspectors to carry out enforcement in bus lanes.
The Ayalon Highways Company, which was transferred last week from the Tel Aviv Municipality to the Ministry of Transport, is carrying out the project. The intercity bus lanes will be made and promoted by the National Transport Infrastructure Company.
Regarding the scheme, Katz said, "The goal that I laid out for the ministry and the public transportation companies is to incrementally bring bus service in Israel to a European level by the end of 2018. In this framework, the government, in conjunction with the municipalities, will complete the establishment of all the bus lanes in Gush Dan and their electronic enforcement by the municipalities in accordance with the law that we passed, and, therefore, this project is a priority, and all necessary resources and efforts will be invested in it."
The minister further stated, "Completing the bus lanes and the municipal enforcement, alongside improving the activities of the public transit companies, will lead to a breakthrough and a large revolution and will place Israel in the first rung of advanced countries as regards bus services and public transport, even before the completion of the subway and light rails in Gush Dan, which will bump us up another level after the backwardness of the past decades."
Katz added that the revolutionary initiative is intended to create a significant improvement in the level of public transit service in all matters related to the speed, regularity, reliability, comfort, and accessibility of travel and to bring about a growth in the number of passengers on public transportation.
The ministry set a goal for signing agreements with local authorities to establish the project, and the sooner an authority signs the agreement, the larger its incentives and benefits package will be. The first target date set was April 30. The routes selected were chosen because of their high number of public transit passengers and traffic delays. The Ayalon Highways Company will begin planning the bus lanes in the six cities in the coming days, and immediately thereafter, their construction will begin.
Alongside the benefits of promoting and preferring public transport is the concern that reducing road space for private cars may lead to increased traffic jams.
Givatayim Mayor Ran Kunik said regarding the scheme, "Our position, as has been explained to the minister and his top officials, is that in the case of Givatayim, this is nearly impossible. We have narrow roads with only one lane in each direction for nearly their entire length. At the same time, there's also a plan to create bike lanes on these roads."
Contrary to his Givatayim counterpart, the mayor of Kiryat Ono, Israel Gal, supports the scheme: "The plan is to relieve traffic congestion in the city and to enable drivers faster entering and exiting."
Katz has emphasized that the new bus lane network will be integrated with two additional, multibillion shekel schemes promoted by the Ministry of Transport: the fast lanes project, including a network of fast lanes to enter Tel Aviv, and the establishment of metropolitan bicycle expressways in Gush Dan.
