The Light Rail’s Red Line serving Metropolitan Tel Aviv is finally going to start regular service after decades of planning and work at the cost of close to NIS 19 billion ($5.16 billion). The line runs 24 kilometers, from Petah Tikvah to Jaffa, with 34 stations, 24 above and 10 below ground. It connects five municipalities: Petah Tikva, Bnei Brak, Ramat Gan, Tel Aviv-Yafo, and Bat Yam.
Work continues these days on the Purple Line, connecting Tel Aviv with Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, and Yahud and Or Yehuda; and the Green Line, from Holon to Ramat Hasharon and Herzliya via Tel Aviv.
A light railway was built by the French firm Decauville in Jaffa and Tel Aviv during World War I. It connected the Jaffa port with the Yarkon River. The line was in use for about a decade after the war and was dismantled.
In the mid-1960s, a subway system was first planned in Tel Aviv, and the first subway station was constructed under the Shalom Meir Tower, then the tallest building in all of Israel. After they dug up the subway station, the project was interrupted and no rails were laid in any direction.
In 2000, the subway plan was revised to a light rail, and more plausible plans for a mass transit system in Tel Aviv were unveiled. After the Red Line was approved, excavation began in late 2009, with the construction of the underground stations starting in August 2015. Yada, yada, yada, in February 2017, most of the stations along the Red Line were under construction.
One innovative feature in the Red Line stations, because Tel Aviv happens to be surrounded by a few million Arabs, some of whom would love to blow up the first Jewish subway, is an “explosion chamber,” a capsule designed to explode suspicious objects without the need to shut down the station. Works for me.
NTA, the Metropolitan Mass Service (shouldn’t it be Netropolitan? No, it’s a Hebrew acronym, but you already knew that) is a government-owned company in charge of planning and building the Tel Aviv light rail system. has been accused Knesset committees of exceeding its budget by 100% due to management waste that allegedly included lots of partying.
