Israel's National Licensing Authority, headed by Shira Brandt, today approved the first package of works on the Tel Aviv Metropolitan Metro for the construction of the M2 line depot in Petah Tikva.
The depot will be the storage, service and maintenance garage for the Metro's trains and carriages with infrastructure including offices and parking. As part of the initial work, earthworks will prepare the land for the project. The laying of the cornerstone for the project is expected to take place soon, after tractors would have already begun work.
The Petah Tikva depot will serve the M2 line, the busiest of the planned Metro lines, for which expropriation orders were recently issued for apartment buildings in central Tel Aviv, Petah Tikva, and Bnei Brak. The line will extend underground over 26 kilometers with 22 stations from Holon and central Tel Aviv to Givatayim, Bnei Brak, Givat Shmuel and Petah Tikva, and will end in the Segula Industrial Zone, where work is beginning on construction of the depot.
National Licensing Authority planner Ron Rokach said, "This is the first work package for the construction of the Metro system, which is being filed for approval by the Subcommittee for Detailed Planning Documents. Additional work packages to advance work on other lines and sections have been filed for coordination with the National Licensing Authority. These will soon be submitted for approval by the committee and will allow construction of the remaining Metro lines."
However, despite the positive mood created by the start of the work, transport industry figures are concerned that the government's NTA Metropolitan Mass Transit System, which is managing the project, will not meet the schedule for publishing tenders for the construction of the line's excavations, which are planned for next year. This is because NTA has planned only one exit for each of the 109 Metro stations, while the requirements of the planning institutions were to plan several exits from each station, as is customary in similar systems around the world and to facilitate use for passengers.
Now, NTA has been required to plan exits from the stations again, and before this planning is completed, the company will not be able to publish the tenders that the entire market is preparing for, and it is doubtful whether there are enough civil engineering companies in Israel to handle construction of the enormous project alongside other projects in which they are already involved.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on March 31, 2025.
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