Minister of Transport Yisrael Katz has ordered the cancellation of planned weekend work on Gesher Yehudit, the new pedestrian and bicycle path bridge in Tel Aviv over Ayalon Highway. The project will connect eastern and western Tel Aviv - the Bitzaron and Montefiore areas, which are undergoing urban renewal for businesses and homes.
The work would have involved closing sections of Road 20 the Ayalon highway in central Tel Aviv for 24 hours from Friday evening to Saturday evening over the Jewish Sabbath.
Katz said, "The announcement by Tel Aviv Municipality yesterday through the Ayalon Highways Company about building the Yehudit Bridge and the closure of the Ayalon Highway to traffic for six weekends so that work can be undertaken was an infuriating and unnecessary announcement."
Katz added that the way in which the work is due to be carried out to build the bridge seems problematic and will hit the public disproportionately hard over weekends. Katz has asked that alternative proposals be submitted to undertaking the work, possibly during the night as has happened in similar projects.
MK Yair Lapid, chairman of the Yesh Atid opposition party, seized upon what he considers the real reason for the suspension of the weekend work. He said, 'The Ultra-Orthodox parties, those in real control of this government, have instructed Netanyahu to freeze the work on the Ayalon Highway. Thus Netanyahu has obeyed and frozen it, and we'll have to see in crazy traffic jams."
The project is being jointly managed by the Tel Aviv municipality, the Ministry of Transport, and the Ayalon Highway company. The bridge will be 110 meters long, 18 meters high, and 11 meters wide. It will be divided between a bicycle path and pedestrian path with wooden flooring. The bicycle and pedestrian paths will be separated by a seating area with street furniture and bicycle parking facilities. The top part of the bridge will be covered.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 22, 2018
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