The Housing Cabinet headed by Minister of Finance Moshe Kahlon today approved the Ministry of Tourism's plan for a cable car to Jerusalem's Western Wall from the old railway station.
The cable car will travel over 1.4 kilometers and there will be 73 cars with the capacity to transport 3,000 people in each direction.
Starting from David Remez street outside the old Jerusalem station, the cable car will travel above Bible Hill (Givat Hatanakh) and the Valley of Gehenna, skirt around the Diaspora Yeshiva on Mount Zion and the Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu and above the Ein Hilweh neighborhood before the terminal near the Western Wall.
Ministry of Tourism estimates are that 135,000 people visit the Old City each week. The aim of the project is to provide easier access to the Western Wall and southern side of the Old City and significantly ease pedestrian congestion in the Old City.
Kahlon said, "The Western Wall is not currently accessible enough to the public at large For 2,000 years we waited for the Western Wall and it shouldn't be that crowding and congestion will prevent people from reaching the Western Wall to pray, stroll around and take part in military and national ceremonies. The cable car will make the Western Wall accessible to the masses who currently want to come there but simply can't. We are talking about a national project that transcends transport infrastructure and tourism and is a social project that will make the Western Wall accessible to everbody who wants to go there."
Yossi Saidov, co-organizer of 15 Minutes for the promotion of public transport is skeptical about the necessity of the project. "The cable car project won't solve the problem of transport in the Old City but simply shift it to another place and the old railway station will become a bottleneck. The proper solution for the Old City is to take out cars from there and adapt the roads for public transport. Regrettably, the Western wall currently has a parking lot for cars."
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