Last update - 00:00 26/09/2006
Life underground
Ever since the war ended, there has been a kind of longing for a great tikkun (cosmic correction) in the air. This is unlikely to give rise to anything but emotional self-torture in the Jewish style, veiled acceptance in the Indian style, or hollow declarations in the public relations style. Instead of these, it is worth focusing on practical correction, one with both feet on the ground or, more precisely, deep underground.
One of the most important and essential national projects on the agenda at this point in time is the subway train in Tel Aviv - firstly, because Israel needs large, labor-intensive projects; secondly, because the economy needs the untangling of the traffic jam in the center of the country; and most urgently, because the Dan region needs protection from missiles in the near future.
A debate is raging about the damage to the home front during the war in Lebanon: Critics of the government are arguing that the home front was abandoned to its fate and that the government should have evacuated a large population in an organized way. The prime minister, who opposed declaring a state of emergency, is arguing that the evacuation of a population conveys a dangerous message of weakness. His position expresses a value that used to be sacred in Israeli society and perhaps requires re-evaluation.
But precisely in response to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's concerns (which are shared by many others) that large cities would become ghost towns, and as it is clear that next time there will be a need to protect, in addition to the North, more than two million people living in the Tel Aviv metropolis and the commuters who pass through it, the building of a subway train system is a prime priority.
Large and important projects have been born out of states of emergency. The U.S. space program is a result of the Cold War; the construction of the Underground in London was expedited in the wake of World War I, and many of the residents of the city found prolonged and organized shelter from the heavy bombardments in the Tube stations in World War II. Parts of it, the construction of which was halted because of the war, became an underground plant for the production of airplane spare parts.
The Tel Aviv underground, which was supposed to have started rolling years ago, has been delayed mainly due to excuses concerning a lack of funding. The true cost, about NIS 1.5 billion, has not been weighed with courage and determination against the enormous benefit. Now, when it is clear that it is necessary to fortify extensive areas at the cost of billions, it is necessary to consider again the original plans from the time of Yitzhak Rabin's government. Not the light train, which would make use "in the meantime" of existing public transportation lanes (until they are finished), nor any other transportation trick that will satisfy the duty "transportation referent" bureaucrat at the Finance Ministry but will be something to weep over for generations. An efficient mass transit system in Tel Aviv must be subterranean, of large capacity and fast.
There is no way to "correct" a transportation infrastructure that was created in the 1920s for a few jitneys and donkeys. Tel Aviv, which absorbs about half of all the cars in Israel every day, where there is no parking infrastructure, where the city's business center is not accessible, and where the old buses pollute the air at a dangerous level must line up with the capitals of the world and rely on a sophisticated system that centers around an efficient underground train.
This principle has been valid for years. Now it's a "two for the price of one" principle: In addition to its economic advantages (use of the station areas for businesses and parking, time saving, profits from taxation, the creation of jobs and more), the improvement of life in the city (Athens, which suffered from deadly air pollution and crowding, has leaped an entire era forward thanks to its underground train system) and the pride (a national civil achievement is an important value, especially in light of the depression and the damage to the nation's military pride; the Egyptians are calling the subway system in Cairo "our modern pyramids"), the center of the country will gain a convenient and pleasant protected space, suitable for sheltering a large population.
The large expenditure will then pay off several times over - in money, in the welfare of the public, in the urban aesthetics, and, most importantly, in human lives.