The Appeals Subcommittee of the National Planning and Building Committee has rejected the appeals against the plan to double the tracks on Israel Railways’ coastal route from Shefayim to Haifa, thus ending a years-long planning saga.
The plan (National Infrastructure Plan 65a) had already been approved by the National Infrastructures Committee and by the Coastal Environment Protection Committee, and it was allocated a budget of NIS 15.5 billion in the five-plan for development of the rail network, but seven appeals were filed against it, preventing it from being approved by the government. Today, the Appeals Subcommittee rejected all the appeals, which mainly concerned damage to the coastal environment, removing the obstacles to final approval of the plan.
The plan consists of the construction of two additional railway tracks alongside the existing tracks for a distance of 68 kilometers, including five kilometers of coastal environment. The new tracks will enable fast trains, travelling at up to 250 kilometers an hour, to cut the journey time between Tel Aviv and Haifa to half an hour. They will run partially underground. The other two tracks will be for suburban trains.
The additional tracks will allow Israel Railways to run more frequent trains and raise passenger numbers. The plan represents a substantial part of the strategic plan for the railways for 2030. The Hof Hacarmel station in Haifa will be expanded and the station at Binyamina will be moved outside the city. The second part of the plan, which has still not been approved, covers doubling of the tracks within Haifa, and is the subject of deep dispute, because of the way in which the railway tracks cut off the city from the sea.
Sources familiar with the project said that the prolonged planning procedure had delayed it by two years. Environmental organizations, on the other hand, protested against the damage they said would be caused to the coastline.
Against the background of the length of the planning procedures for this plan, the recent Economic Arrangements Law accompanying the state budget introduced an amendment to the National Infrastructures Law whereby national infrastructures will no longer be discussed in the Coastal Environment Protection Committee, but representatives of environmental organizations will take part in relevant discussions of the National Infrastructures Committee, which will diminish the ability of the organizations and of people with relevant expertise to influence infrastructure planning in the coastal area.
