Beit Shemesh officials are quite concerned after learning the Finance Ministry plans to cancel a planned 800 million NIS allocation to redo Route 38, the main access road to the city since the road is no longer capable of handling the volume of traffic, being one lane in each direction. When the road was built Beit Shemesh was not on the map and today, it is a growing city that is plagued with chronic traffic delays on the roadway.
R’ Moshe Muntag, who heads the local building committee in Beit Shemesh sent an urgent letter to senior treasury officials explaining why it is absolutely essential to permit the construction of the new roadway.
HaMevaser reports the letter was also sent to Finance Minister Dr. Yuval Shteinitz, Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz and MK Rav Moshe Gafne, who chairs the Knesset Finance Committee.
Muntag explains that officials have been working with Gafne and others for years to find the budget, adding that if the project is not funded, it will halt expansion plans for the city. He explains the current road, Route 38 is among the most overcrowded in the nation and it presents a serious hazard, serving as the main road to enter and leave the city for 100,000 residents, with one lane in each direction.
He adds the road also serves tens of thousands of residents and workers of the adjacent Matte Yehuda Regional Council as well as the many shoppers arriving in the area and trucks heading to and from the Har Tuv industrial area.
Officials add that 6,000 units are being sold as we speak and another 15,000 are in various stages of building and warns halting the renovation project for the roadway will lead to an untenable situation.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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One Response
Expanding Road 38 would be devastating for the local environment. Thousands of trees would have to be destroyed.
A much better idea, I think, would be to create a new road straight from Beit Shemesh through the valley towards Yesodot / Yad Binyamin, connecting to roads 3 / 6 there. That way it would go through farming fields mostly.