Delay to Jerusalem light railway could cost state NIS 500m

Those who thought they'd be able to ride the rails in Jerusalem by September will have to think again.

Yes, the light rail project was supposed to be completed by September 8, after numerous delays, but its deadline has now been extended another seven months, to April 7, 2011.

The extension comes after arbitrators Boaz Okun, a retired judge, and Ram Caspi, a lawyer, adopted the recommendation of the project's engineering consultant to authorize an extension for the CityPass consortium, which holds the franchise for the project, because most of the previous delays were caused by government ministries or the Jerusalem municipality.

That decision paves the way for CityPass to sue the state for up to NIS 500 million in compensation for losses due to the delay.

The state has already agreed to pay CityPass NIS 150 million in compensation for a 19-month delay agreed to in June 2009.

Over the past three years, the light rail project has been plagued by delays and disagreements between CityPass, the Jerusalem municipality and several government ministries, with each party blaming the others for the problems.

CityPass said the deadline extension shows that it "is not responsible for the delays in the project, as we have long argued."

"We hope that from now on, the cooperation between the groups will resume for the benefit of the project and for the welfare of Jerusalem residents," the consortium said in a statement.

Getting the job done

The Transportation Ministry's transit oversight task force, however, said it saw the arbitrators' decision as a way to make sure the franchise holder gets the job done.

"We are pleased with the arbitrators' decision," the ministry task force said in a statement. "For the first time they set the CityPass group a final and binding date for the commercial operation of the light rail. The residents deserve an end to the long period of delays."

The findings submitted by engineering consultant Avi Odavin came after he examined the light rail's civil engineering work; the traffic, ticketing, security, detection and signpost systems; and the matter of traffic lights. He found that the main reason for the project delays a lack of clarity regarding traffic patterns and traffic lights, particularly in the case of 60 intersections along the rail lines and 40 intersections next to the track.

The franchise agreement stipulates that the traffic lights will be planned by the franchisee and approved by the state, but Odavin's review found that the state has only recently decentralized the control system and that it publicized the guidelines for designing the traffic lights two years after the financial deal was closed in March 2008. It also found that there are still disagreements between the state and CityPass regarding who gets priority at the traffic lights.

Discussions about the state's responsibility for the delays will continue through May.