Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz is pleased after a ministerial committee approved his master plan for extending Israel Railways service to the southern port city of Eilat. Katz boasts the train service will cut the travel time in half as compared to driving; from four hours to two by train.

The plan calls for tracks that will accommodate both passenger and freight trains to provide service between Beersheva and Eilat, a 260 kilometer (161 miles) span that has been approved by the national council.

The opposition to the seven billion NIS plan is an audible one, including green activists who fear the destruction of many nature reserves in the south as well as experts who explain the plan is fiscally non viable and borders on the absurd. Some of the experts explain it would be far less expensive and fiscally far more viable to improve on the current road leading to Eilat. They explain there simply is no justification for such a rail line, which will never be a financially viable entity. Others point out that the costly project does not even include connecting to the Ports of Eilat and Ashdod, which would at least bring a measure of justification to the minister’s plan from a financial perspective.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)