For more than a year, Binyamin residents have been complaining about traffic jams on the way to Jerusalem. Passengers to Jerusalem struggle with traffic bottlenecks in Adam Square and at the Hizma checkpoint. So on Tuesday, after months of waiting, a new interchange was officially opened to the public.
At the inauguration ceremony, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was accompanied by Transport Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud), said: “We are opening a new interchange, which will – of course – be welcome news for the residents of the area. The Hizme-Adam route, which has been onerous to drivers on a daily basis, is changing. This will facilitate a significant easing of traffic congestion to and from Jerusalem.”
“We are not stopping here,” Netanyahu continued. “We will yet complete the paving of bypass roads, the widening of lanes and the improvement of infrastructures. There is a combined transportation-security aspect here.”
The PM pointed out that “while we are joining the country geographically, we are also joining the present to the future. Today and in this place … we are also joining the present to the past. Our ancestors walked here and took in this view of these valleys and these hills. The greatest dramas in the history of our people and of humanity took place here in this place; therefore, we are also joining our past to our future and this is a very great privilege.”
The interchange project is expected to significantly reduce traffic congestion on Route 60, a main thoroughfare in Judea and Samaria. The $19 million project was launched three years ago, in cooperation with Netivei Yisrael, the Civil Administration and the Ministry of Transportation.