The Ministry of Transport opposes the construction of a huge parking lot in the center of Tel Aviv. The ministry's representatives on the Tel Aviv regional planning committee will object to the Rabin Square parking lot at all stages of discussion of the plan, a letter sent to the Tel Aviv branch of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel states. The letter relates the Tel Aviv municipality's plan to build a five-level underground parking lot with space for 2,000 cars at Tel Aviv's Rabin Square.
The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel carried out an economic viability study of the project, and concluded that it would cause the Tel Aviv Municipality a $6.6 million deficit at the end of the financing stage. The Society says that the study reinforces its claim that the project is problematic, particularly since a great deal of public money will be spent developing the light railway in the area.
According to Ronen Yeshayahu, a senior transport planning manager at the Ministry of Transport, the parking lot will cause damage in the following ways:
- Congestion in access routes, with no possibility of raising their capacity.
- Head-on competition for the Green Line of the urban railway planned to pass through Ibn Gvirol Street, which forms the eastern side of Rabin Square.
- Spoiling of the plan for higher density in the main business center and higher building rights around the stations on the urban railway.
Stella Avidan, coordinator of the Transportation Committee of the Tel Aviv Green Forum, said the Tel Aviv Municipality was now on its own against the relevant government ministries, the Knesset, and local residents. "At a time when, all over the world, parking lots are being limited, and the entry of motor vehicles into city centers is being restricted, the Tel Aviv Municipality refuses to move forward into the 21st century and to understand that a parking lots of this kind are a transport, health, and economic disaster," she said.
Tel Aviv municipal engineer Danny Kaizer said in response that the Ministry of Transport had tried to reduce the number of parking spaces in the regional committee, but had failed. He said it was now carrying out a rearguard action against the municipality to reduce the number of spaces.
"The municipality examined the need for a large parking lot in this part of the city, and the results showed such a large deficit of parking spaces that even the construction of a parking lot on this scale will not be sufficient. All the arguments will be heard in the regional committee, and if it emerges that the parking lot is not economically viable, then no developer will take it on. Our job is to create a suitable planning inventory, and that's what we are doing," Kaizer added.
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on June 13, 2004