Jerusalem aerial cableway

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The Jerusalem aerial cableway is a planned means of local transport that will create new access to Jerusalem's old town and the Western Wall . The cable car is scheduled to go into operation in 2021.

Geographical location

The planned route is to begin near the historic, first train station in Jerusalem, receive a middle station on Mount Zion and then continue to the Dung Gate , the main entrance to the Western Wall. The route ran directly in front of the south-eastern section of the city wall of Jerusalem, without crossing the old city or its city wall to end immediately in front of it. Apart from the base station of the rest of the route is predominantly in East Jerusalem , formally by international viewing occupied area is.

Stations

The table contains the locations currently being discussed, an exact plan is not yet available:

station place location
Valley station Old Jerusalem Station ("First Station") 31 ° 46 ′ 1 ″ N, 35 ° 13 ′ 29 ″ E
Operating station Abu gate Coordinates are missing! Help.
First middle station Kedem Visitor Center ( City of David , archaeological site) 31 ° 46 ′ 18 "N, 35 ° 14 ′ 6" E
Mountain station Mount Zion 31 ° 46 ′ 18 "N, 35 ° 13 ′ 43" E

aims

The project is primarily run by the Jerusalem city administration, its former mayor Nir Barkat and his successor, Moshe Lion , as well as the Israeli tourism minister, Yariv Levin . The proponents of the project argue that this will improve access to the Old City of Jerusalem and the Western Wall, relieve the existing traffic connections and make the trip by cable car faster and more pleasant than by car, bus or on foot through the narrow streets of the Old City, where there is no parking and hardly any local public transport .

The opponents of the project see it primarily as a political measure to tie East Jerusalem more closely to Israel and to further weaken the legal status of the “occupied territory”, which was unilaterally annexed by Israel . In addition, there are monument protection concerns about the proximity to Jerusalem's old town.

A number of conflicts arise from this:

Conflicts

  • The planned route crosses the border between West and East Jerusalem, the railway would also pass through East Jerusalem territory and strengthen Israel's claim to East Jerusalem. The mountain station is to be housed in a building complex belonging to the right-wing settler group "Elad", who want to present their view of the history of Jerusalem there.
  • the route ran directly in front of the historic city wall. That could affect the protection of the environment for the view of the historic old town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site .
  • the residents concerned, who fear a violation of their privacy, were excluded from the planning process because the project was declared a nationally important infrastructure project by law.

There is considerable resistance to the project in civil society. Residents have spoken out against the project, along with a number of celebrities, including the architects Daniel Libeskind , Ron Arad , Moshe Safdie and Santiago Calatrava , the archaeologist Meir Ben-Dov , the Israeli Association of Urban Planners, Moreschet Derech , across their cemetery and the route (one of the two associations of city guides in Jerusalem), the Society for the Preservation of Israeli Historic Sites, the Society for Conservation of Nature in Israel and a number of other associations.

The project is endorsed by the Association of Israeli Tourist Guides.

Suez Environnement has refused to participate in the project for political reasons.

implementation

Means for planning in the amount of 3.6 million euros were provided. The construction costs are estimated at around 50 million euros. The project is classified as important for tourism, which, following a change in the Planning Act in 2016, allows the local and regional planning procedures to be bypassed and the planning approval to be carried out by the national planning committee assigned to the Israeli Ministry of Finance, which speeds up the process considerably. Commissioning is planned for 2021. The deadline to raise objections to the planning expired on April 3, 2019. On June 3, 2019, the national infrastructure commission approved the project.

technology

A gondola lift is planned. The route length is 1400 m. The route will lead over 15 masts, which will be between 15 and 26 m high. 73 gondolas, each capable of transporting 10 passengers, should run at the same time. This enabled a capacity of 3,000 travelers per hour. The journey time should be 3.5 minutes, but operations will be suspended on the Sabbath . The pure construction time is estimated at 18 months to two years. The project was approved in May 2017. As is customary in Israel, traffic should be stopped on the Sabbath (Friday evening to Saturday evening).

literature

  • NN: Cable Car to Jerusalem's Old City Expected to be Operational in Three Years . In: Times of Israel of March 7, 2017. Cited from: HaRakevet 117 (June 2017), p. 11.
  • NN: The Jerusalem Cable Car Project . In: HaRakevet 121 (June 2018), pp. 15, 16 and 18.
  • NN: News Bulletin . In: Deutschlandradio from May 28, 2017. Based on: HaRakevet 117 (June 2017), p. 11.
  • Anna Roiser: [untitled]. In: Times of Israel of March 13, 2019. Reproduced from: HaRakevet 125 (June 2019), pp. 17f.
  • Sue Surkes: Israel Prize winners call on government to cancel Jerusalem Old City cable car . In: Times of Israel of October 12, 2018. Reproduced from: HaRakevet 123 (December 2018), pp. 13f.
  • Sue Surkes: With objection period ending, Opposition to Jerusalem cable car peaks . In: Times of Israe of April 3, 2019. Reproduced from: HaRakevet 125 (June 2019), pp. 18f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Itamar Eichner: Express cable car to the Western Wall . In: Y-Net News from 05.29.17 [!]; accessed on July 3, 2019
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Cable Car
  3. ↑ Roiser, p. 17
  4. ↑ a b c Roiser
  5. ↑ UNESCO World Heritage Jerusalem Old City and its walls .
  6. ↑ Surkes: Israel Prize winners , pp. 13f
  7. ↑ a b Surkes: With objection period ending , p. 18
  8. ↑ a b The Jerusalem Cable Car Project , p. 16
  9. ↑ Surkes: Israel Prize winners , pp. 13f (14)
  10. ↑ a b Surkes: With objection period ending , p. 19
  11. ↑ a b Jerusalem. Cable car decision . In: HaRakevet 126 (September 2019), p. 16
  12. ↑ News Bulletin