Israel Railways has ordered 74 double-decker carriages from Bombardier Transportation for $166 million as part of the tender that the company won in 2010. The carriages will go some way to relieving the crowding on existing routes but will come at the expense of the construction of new highways. Due to the government's widening budget deficit and budget crisis, the Ministry of Transport was asked to find the funds for the new carriages from existing budgets and not to request new funds from the Ministry of Finance. Consequently budgets were diverted from money earmarked for road construction. This was done as part of a trend, which began in 2016, of encouraging public transport at the expense of roads. RELATED ARTICLES Israel Railways signs Bombardier deal for 74 carriages Road 6 northern section to Kiryat Ata opens Fri The main highway project that will be hit by the budget changes is the planned 12 kilometer southern extension of Road 6 from the Shoket Interchange to the Nabatim Interchange, for which hundreds of millions of shekels had already been allocated. Construction of the road had previously been delayed because unrecognized Bedouin villages needed to be moved to permanent villages elsewhere. Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on June 10, 2019 © Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2019
