Three years after the start of the works, the people of Jerusalem welcome the completion. The new Route 16 will provide an answer and serve as another entrance to Jerusalem that will take the load off the existing entrance. Today, (Wed), the road was fully inaugurated and opened in a festive event in the morning.
Route 16, a national transportation infrastructure project carried out using the PPP method that was implemented through an inter-ministerial tender committee headed by the General Accountant, the Ministry of Transportation and Road Safety and the Jerusalem Municipality through Netibi Israel. The winner of the tender is the “Shapir-Pitzrotti” partnership who established the project and are responsible for operation and maintenance for the next 22 years.
The road will allow a new entrance to Jerusalem and will connect Route 1 from the exit area to the Givat Shaul industrial area and Beit Street in Jerusalem, near the Givat Mordechai interchange on Menachem Begin Boulevard.
The road, which will be another central entrance to the capital city, was opened to traffic about a year before the planned date. The significant advance of the schedules was made possible thanks to efficient work in the PPP format execution method.
The length of the road is about 6 km, and it includes 4 tunnels, 7 bridges and 3 interchanges – Moza, Ravida and Bate (near Bate Street, and Shaare Zedek Hospital), upgrading the local road system, upgrading existing infrastructure and planting about 700 new trees. The permitted travel speed in it will be 80 km/h, and the costs of its construction were more than one billion shekels. The road is expected to significantly improve accessibility to Jerusalem, ease traffic congestion and allow quick and easy access to the south and west of the city.
In addition, as part of the project, extensive landscape development is being carried out that allows access to the Jerusalem forest and its surroundings while building bicycle paths, observation decks and leisure and recreation areas.
The Minister of Transportation and Road Safety, MK Merav Michaeli: “Within the framework of the policy change and the inversion of the pyramid, we must do everything so that this road will eventually serve as many public transportation and mass transportation vehicles as possible so that as many as possible can get to and from our capital. I want to thank the facts and the workers for shortening the time in the project, something that we at the Ministry of Transportation are becoming routine. May we all have a good trip!”
Director General of the Ministry of Transportation, Michal Frank: “Congratulations to the residents of Jerusalem and those entering its gates. Route 16 is good news for the residents of the south of the city who will be able to enter and exit in a direct way, thus easing the traffic in the city center. Public transportation services will soon be operating on the new road, to commercial and leisure areas in the south of the city, and when the green line of the light rail is completed, there will be full connectivity for those entering the city via Hana-Vase.”
The Accountant General at the Ministry of Finance, Yali Rotenberg: “Today we are witnessing the opening of a new entrance to the capital city of Jerusalem. This is great news not only for the residents of West and South Jerusalem, but also for the other drivers whose travel times will be significantly shortened. Thanks to the tender method – with the participation of the private sector and its management through the inter-ministerial tender committee and the established smart incentive system, in which each sector deals with issues in which it has a relative advantage, a significant advance in the schedules is possible. The introduction of opening the road to traffic is possible despite many challenges that were discovered throughout the construction period of such a complex project. The project is a direct product of the work of the teams in the Accountant General’s Division together with the partners in the Ministry of Transportation and the Israel Routes Company, as well as the inter-ministerial committee in which the Jerusalem Municipality, the Inbal Company and the Budget Division of the Treasury also participated.
Nissim Peretz, CEO of Natibi Israel: “The new Route 16 project is one of the most complex engineering projects carried out in the State of Israel. The road is part of a multitude of transportation solutions for the city of Jerusalem, because for a complex transportation challenge, it is appropriate to have several solutions. Highway 16 is part of a solution to overcrowding and congestion. I hope that the road will make it easier to move into and out of the city. This is a holiday for the residents of Jerusalem and those who come to it.”
Oren Cohen, CEO of the concessionaire “Shapir Pizzrotti”: “This is a project that is the result of excellent cooperation with our Italian partners, which led to an advance in the schedules of a year and two months from the time that was established, despite the corona epidemic that accompanied us during the work period. This is a technological, advanced and efficient road that traveling on it will be significant news for the citizens of Israel in general and the residents of Jerusalem in particular.”