The NTA Metropolitan Mass Transit System filed the plan for the Green Line railway with the Tel Aviv and Central Regional Planning and Building Board on Monday for statutory approval. The 14-km line from Kanyon Hazahav in Rishon LeZion to Carlebach St., Tel Aviv, will cost $400 million. The Green Line is the second line for the Tel Aviv light railway.
An elevated dual-track line will be built, one in each direction, with 25 stations at 500-meter intervals.
The NTA timetable calls for the Green Line to open simultaneously with the Red Line in 2010.
NTA general manager Yishay Dotan told "Globes" that the line was a natural continuation of the light railway project, and would provide a solution for the southern approaches to Tel Aviv from Holon and Rishon LeZion.
Dotan said no decision had yet been taken on the type of tender to be published, but that the winner for operating the Red Line might also operate the Green Line, although the same company would not build it.
The 22-km Red Line, including a 10-km tunnel, is the first line NTA is building, at a cost of NIS 6.5 billion. The line runs from Petah Tikva through Bnei Brak and Ramat Gan to Tel Aviv and on to Jaffa and Bat Yam.
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on June 2, 2004