Schwartz on the Shabbat bus
Photo: Dana Kopel
Tel Aviv co-op to offer additional bus lines on Shabbat
After a successful crowd-funding campaign, the non-profit communal initiative Noa Tanua will add buses on Saturday operating along the routes of lines 18 and 61, as well as a third line decided by the public in a vote. Conscript soldiers will ride for free until the end of 2017.
A Tel Aviv cooperative that has been operating buses on Shabbat in the Greater Tel Aviv area for the past two years will be expanding its services in the coming months and adding new bus lines.
The non-profit communal initiative Noa Tanua ("and yet it moves," a phrase attributed to Galileo Galilei) has been running a bus line connecting Tel Aviv with two of its suburbs—Givatayim and Ramat Gan—along the route of the number 63 bus, as well as a bus from Be'er Sheva to the Ashkelon beach during the summer.
After a successful online crowd-funding campaign, the co-op announced that it would add three additional bus lines. This coming Saturday, the co-op will start operating a bus on the route of line 18, the second most popular bus line in the Greater Tel Aviv area, which connects Bat Yam, Jaffa, and Tel Aviv.
Noa Tanua founder Roy Schwartz (Photo: Dana Kopel)
In the summer, two additional bus lines will be added—one of them will be along the route of bus 61, which connects Ramat Gan and Tel Aviv, and another line will be voted for by the public on the co-op's website and Facebook page.
The group recently raised NIS 338,950 (US$93,672) in a crowd-funding campaign, the third most successful such campaign in Israel in the number of contributors.
Since the campaign has far exceeded initial expectations of NIS 180,000, the money raise will also be used to allow conscript soldiers to ride for free until the end of 2017, as well as hand out bus passes worth a total of NIS 180,000 to disenfranchised populations.
"People should not have to stay at home on Shabbat because they can't afford a car, and they should be able to enjoy their one day off," said Roy Schwartz, the co-op's founder.
The non-profit co-op has been operating since 2015 with the help of volunteers. Only members of the co-op can use the service, with membership being free while the bus ride itself costing NIS 9 (US$2.49). Payment is done using the HopOn mobile app.
