Back On Track
In 2000, the plan for a subway was changed to one for light rail, and more plausible plans for a mass transit system in Tel Aviv were unveiled. The first 22 kilometres (14 mi) Red Line has been approved, and excavation began in late 2009. The Red Line is expected to become operational in 2016.
In December 2006, the MTS group was awarded a BOT contract for the Red Line of the light rail, by which they are to build and operate the line for its first 32 years. MTS consists of Africa Israel, Siemens of Germany, the Egged Bus Cooperative, Chinese infrastructure company CCECC, the Portuguese infrastructure firm Soares da Costa, and the leading Dutch transportation company HTM.
After many years of delays due to MTS financing issues, in December 2010 the government revoked MTS' concession and nationalized the project, putting it under the authority of NTA, the government agency which was in charge with overseeing the overall development of the rapid transit system in the Tel Aviv metro area. Alstom, which supplied the trams for the Jerusalem Light Rail, plans to bid to supply trams, as well as signals, and electrical and control systems.
A significant portion of the Tel Aviv Light Rail will be underground, so Tel Aviv may be viewed as the fifth city in the Middle East to boast a subway system. Haifa was first with the Carmelit in 1959, while the Cairo Metro, opened in 1987, the Tehran Metro opened in 1999, the metro was the fourth when it opened in 2009.
Read more about this topic: Tel Aviv Light Rail
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“The universe constantly and obediently answers to our conceptions; whether we travel fast or slow, the track is laid for us. Let us spend our lives in conceiving then. The poet or the artist never yet had so fair and noble a design but some of his posterity at least could accomplish it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)