Comments on: When Irritation Inhibits Progress

By: R

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 23:11:35 +0000

I wouldn’t be so pessimistic about the future of rail transit in Jerusalem. During construction of Los Angeles’ Red Line subway, there was a huge amount public anger generated by construction mishaps, cost overruns, etc. The opposition grew so vehement that county voters approved severe restrictions on future transit spending, and the local congressional delegation won a federal ban on future subway tunneling in L.A.

But the minute the subway opened, it became immensely popular, and within a few years, support was building for an expansion of the system. Eight years after the subway was completed, two-thirds of voters approved a major tax increase to finance more rail construction.

Once people see the benefits of rail transit, they quickly forget the construction headaches. I’m pretty sure the same will happen in Jerusalem– maybe not by 2020 like originally envisioned, but not too long after that either.

By: Reshef

Reshef — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 18:35:02 +0000

CityPass did not commit any mistake. I would expect a deeper observation in a site called "the Transport politics". The goal of CityPass was, and still is, to make as much money as possible, and not to benefit the population. They first made sure that the company will be compensated for every delay. Thus they have every incentive to continue these works forever (indeed, CityPass has to "prove" that the delay is not their fault, but this is easy when the arbitrator,Ram Caspi, works for them. See here [in Hebrew,sorry]). By digging out all over the city (instead of working in sections) they made it certain that the project would never be aborted, no matter how inefficient, due to the enormous sunk cost involved. Finally, part of the contract forbids any other transit system to compete with the light train, and in fact many bus lines have already been canceled. So when the train will finally be operative (probably a few years from now), people will be only feel great relief. It is not inaptness, just good old corruption.

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 22:41:28 +0000

Maybe. The people I know in Tel Aviv are still skeptical. And they have every right to be; when the private consortium ran out of money in the recession, and the government thinks spending $2.5 billion on its largest metro area is a last-ditch effort, it’s likely that the project will get canceled in the future.

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 22:07:46 +0000

According to Globes.il, Tel Aviv will likely have it’s light rail.

http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000572915&fid=942

By: Max Wyss

Max Wyss — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 10:26:55 +0000

A quick looking around in the search engines brought up:

Bordeaux
Stockholm
Dublin

The total volume lost is in the EUR 5bn range (Stockholm is said to be EUR 3.5bn).

And they are still under pressure, and they may get existing contracts cancelled.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 04:04:18 +0000

Anyone know which contracts Veolia lost?

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 00:38:37 +0000

At least Jerusalem’s LRT got to the construction phase. Tel Aviv has been planning a subway since the 1960s, but never managed to start building anything. The latest incarnation was a PPP scheme that got almost to construction in 2007-8 and fell apart after the financial crisis.

While digging subways in old cities is hard, it’s not impossible. Athens, Rome, and Istanbul have all done it. In fact, in Israel, driverless metros have one special advantage, which is that the Haredi community may allow them to run on Saturdays.