“There are stations all along the street, but no bus”

Only a student bus passes through Milli Ben Sheetrit Street in Nahariya, and only in the morning. “There are bus stops here all along the street, but there is no bus.” Millie’s case is no exception, many neighborhoods across the country, and especially in the periphery, are left with poor planning and no access to the city center or the possibility to get out of the neighborhood by public transportation. Another article in the “Disconnected” series – the failures of public transportation in the periphery.

Millie Ben Sheetrit leaves her house in the morning and walks for a few minutes until she arrives at the bus stop. It’s not that there are no stops along the way, there are, but there is no bus that passes through them. Just a line that picks up students in the morning and brings them home at noon.

Even when she arrives at the station she has another wait, line 8 will only arrive in 25 minutes. “They do not know what it is like to commute by public transport and be dependent on it,” she sighed. “There are no bad people here and nowhere, only times have changed and the infrastructure has not been adjusted.”

After a long drive, which passes through many neighborhoods, she arrives at the destination station, but not at her final destination. To get to the beach Millie needs a few more minutes to walk. “It’s a beach town with no access to the beach. Those who live in the eastern and northern neighborhoods have to spend a lot of money on taxis so they can get to this resource, which should be open to everyone.”

“This is how we weaken the population of the periphery – pushing us into cars when we have no money for them,” she added. “A taxi to a hospital costs 25 shekels in each direction, it’s a lot of money for someone whose salary is average and below. You have to remember, we are not talking here about a rich population.”

Sinai Gas from the Ashkelon area also knows Millie’s feelings, he also does not own a private car – and getting to the beach is not easy for him either. “The feeling is that whoever planned the transportation in Ashkelon has never lived in it and never traveled on a bus. While there are lines that go endlessly and without logic, getting to the sea, the national park or the shopping centers is just a nightmare without a private car. “.

“There is no reason why in a city like Ashkelon everyone will be stuck in traffic jams, but the solutions they offer are to widen lanes and not enough investors are improving public transport,” he added. “The new neighborhood that is being built was also designed mainly for a private car.”

Nahariya and Ashkelon are not the only cities with these problems. In many places in Israel, public transportation is not yet an alternative to a private car. In peripheral areas, some of which are on a low socio-economic index, public transportation is faltering, raising dependence on expensive private vehicles.

One of the main consequences of the lack of efficient public transport is the ability to get to the workplace without owning a private vehicle. Over the years, the Ministry of Transportation has prided itself on launching direct lines to employment centers, but the situation is still not perfect, to say the least.

“The further away from the metropolitan cities, the relative accessibility decreases,” reads a study by the Bank of Israel from 2019. “In most peripheral localities, and especially in Arab localities, accessibility is low and is due to the supply constraints of transportation services.”

According to the study, the smaller and more peripheral the city, the less public transport access to employment centers decreases. For example, while in Ashdod the accessibility index for public transportation is 60-50% of the accessibility of private vehicles to employment centers in neighboring neighboring Ashkelon, the accessibility drops to 20-40% and in the Yeruham and Arad area it already stands at 0-20%. There are also similar gaps in the north compared to Haifa, Afula and Umm al-Fahm.

The study also addressed the problematic nature of relying on transportation organized by the employer. Although they are efficient, they increase employees’ dependence on the few employers who provide a shuttle service, which limits their employment options and bargaining over their terms of employment.

If the Ministry of Transportation is proud of improving accessibility to employment centers, a study conducted by Future Mobility showed that when it comes to out-of-town industrial areas – getting there by public transportation is not easy, and less efficient than by private car.

For example, a trip by public transport from Beit Jen to Bar Lev Industrial Park will take 101 minutes compared to 40 minutes by private car, a similar ratio is maintained between the Galilee landscape and the attractive industrial park. A trip from Afula to the Tziporit industrial area in the Lower Galilee takes 80 minutes by public transport, compared to 34 minutes by car.

A drive from Dimona to Mishor Rotem Park will take 16 minutes by private car but 65 minutes by bus. The ride will take 128 minutes by public transport compared to 59 minutes by private car.

“The planning of public transportation infrastructure and roads in Israel is based on the assumption that in the periphery, public transportation to the center of the country is needed to work,” said Yaron Hoffman Dishon, a researcher at the Adva Center. “Getting on a train to Tel Aviv is easier than getting to Arad from Ofakim.”

He added: “Those who can choose otherwise are almost never in public transport, it has become a service of the weak. Also in the discourse – when talking about transport problems talk about traffic jams as if this is the problem. Traffic jams will always be, the question of whether .

“The damage is mainly in places where the social and geographical periphery meet, but also in some places that do not,” said 15-minute organization director Shimrit Notman. .

“Even when the Ministry of Transportation realized that high-speed lines needed to be planned, many times they did not leave the locality but the main road,” Notman added. “Many times, localities that are in the same geographical area are not connected. This weakens the periphery, because it will be easier to travel to Tel Aviv than to a locality that is seven kilometers away from me.”

“The periphery suffers from a lack of integration between the various means of transportation, low frequency and poor accessibility,” said Yael Dori, head of planning and transportation at Adam Teva VeDin. “Planning each means of transport separately, without preliminary comprehensive planning of the entire system, harms the provision of a normal service that the public can use and enjoy. The state repeatedly chooses to invest in advanced planning and huge projects in Gush Dan and Jerusalem only but significantly improves public transport accessibility In the periphery and from there to the center. “

Another option to improve the state of public transportation in the periphery is to operate it in the format of smart transportation – that is, travel by appointment such as the “Babel” service in Gush Dan or the “Egged Ticket” in Jerusalem. According to Michal Gelbert, CEO of Future Mobility, the move will streamline travel and shorten the path to employment centers.

The 99 lobby also supports the idea. “This will make it possible to provide a better service instead of ‘ghost lines’ of low-frequency, passenger-free buses. In the future, this model could also be tested for cities in the periphery that currently receive a partial and inefficient public transportation service.”

On the other hand, there are experts who restrict the efficiency of smart transportation in isolated and decentralized areas, arguing that the uncertain economic model justifies its operation.

MDepartment of Transportation In response: “The ministry is working intensively to increase public transportation services throughout the country. Since 2016, there has been a 25% increase in the volume of daily public transportation travel. An increase that relates to public transportation services in large urban and rural localities.

“It is important to emphasize that it is not possible to compare rural localities with a population of hundreds or thousands of individuals to urban and metropolitan localities with a population of tens and hundreds of thousands of residents. Peripheral localities also provide a good level of service.” For a locality with up to a thousand residents.

“The few localities that do not receive regular public transportation service are rural localities that are serviced at the entrance junction to the locality on the main road, or localities without supporting infrastructure that allow buses and minibuses to enter their area.

“The ministry is in contact with the relevant local authorities and is working to add a service to localities, subject to regulating infrastructure and allocating budgets for it. The ministry is currently promoting two advanced flexible service projects, in addition to service in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa. Linking localities to major demand centers.

“The ministry conducts extensive staff work to manage metropolitan public transportation in major metropolitan areas across the country, in which public transportation management will be transferred to the Association of Local Authorities. Authorities will be given responsibility and authority to manage public transportation in their area.