In recent years, the residents of Mizrah Emek Hafer have been waging a long struggle in favor of establishing a train station near Moshav Ahitov, a station that was supposed to be built as part of the “Mizrath Rail” project and was canceled at the end of Miri Regev’s tenure as Minister of Transportation.
According to the reasons given by the Ministry of Transport, the decision to cancel the Ahitov station was due to budget deviations and the fact that a nearby train station was planned in Baka-Jet as part of the Menashe railway project. In the background, the Ministry of Transportation and the Treasury believed that the station that would be built in a rural area would not serve a sufficient population and that the multiplicity of stations would create delays for all train users. On the other hand, the residents of the area claimed that the station would serve the tens of thousands of residents who live in the surrounding countryside and that the transportation situation in the area would become impossible.
The struggle, which reached the discussions of the Knesset’s Economic Committee, received a lot of support from the chairman of the committee Michael Biton (Blue and White) and Knesset members who live in the Hefer Valley such as Ram Shefa (Labor) and Ruth Wasserman Landa (Blue and White). The struggle eventually succeeded in creating political pressure Effective on the decision makers.
Last week, Transport Minister Michaeli sent a letter to the heads of the Emek Hefer and Menasha regional councils, Galit Shaul and Ilan Sade, in which she informed them that she had “instructed” the Ministry of Transport to immediately promote the planning and construction of the train station in Ahitov. Michaeli claims in the letter that she changed the position of the ministry after “it became clear to her that according to the current timetables it will be possible to establish and operate a station in Ahitov as early as 2026-2027, with full operation expected in 2028-2029, with the completion of the work on the fourth track”. According to Michaeli, there is justification for the construction of the Ahitov station even in the event that there will be a delay in the construction of the Menasha railway and the Baka station.
Michaeli’s directive has meaning in practice, and it will make it possible to advance the detailed planning of the station. However, after the end of the planning, an additional budget estimated at NIS 200 million is necessary for the construction of the station. As of today, this budget is not available and the rest of the stations of the eastern rail have already been budgeted. Also, detailed planning of the station also requires the approval of the National Infrastructures Committee, but it is likely that this will not be an obstacle.
In Michaeli’s letter there is a quite clear political hint regarding the lack of the current budget and the way in which it will be possible to ensure that it will be achieved: Michaeli writes that as part of her directive “preparation was made for this in preparation for the 2023 budget” and this will be done “when we are leading partners in the next government as well, after the elections, we will take care for this within its framework”. Elsewhere in the letter, she wrote that upon completion of the planning, “I will work to raise the budget for the actual construction of the station.”
The construction of the station in Ahitov will become more complex as more time passes, and already “facts on the ground” have been established that allow the construction of a station with an overhead bridge instead of an underpass, much to the chagrin of those involved. Michaeli’s position changed only last week and not all the relevant parties in Israel Railways and Israel Routes (which is building the project) were informed of this.
The Ahitov station, if indeed built, will be integrated into the eastern rail which should be an alternative to the existing coastal rail line, which runs through Tel Aviv, and is expected to release the national rail’s high dependence on the rail bottleneck in Ayalon. According to the planning, the project is expected to increase the supply of travel in the network by about 30% and the capacity of the trains in the national network is expected to increase daily by about 150 passenger trains and during peak hours six passenger trains per hour are expected to be operated on the track route.
The train service is expected to start at the end of 2026 or the beginning of 2027. Also, the railway claims that the operation of the line will also serve the cargo sector, with the possibility of taking hundreds of trucks off the road per day. According to the railway, the cost of the project is estimated at NIS 8.5 billion, but in the Ministry of Transportation’s budget, the amount designated for the eastern railway is NIS 9.8 billion. The companies carrying out the project are Israel Routes and Israel Railways.
The length of the new track is 64 km and it will connect Hadera in the north to Lod in the south along a route near Highway 6. Apart from Ahitov, six stations are planned to operate along the route, five of which are new: Elad, Kiryat Airport and Tira, Kochav Yair and Taiba stations. Although the service is expected to operate In only about four and a half years, and it is likely that there will be changes, the planning of the lines that will run along the track include a line that will connect Nahariya to Be’er Sheva or the Kiryat HaModi’in station that will be built, as well as another line that will connect the Hadera Mizrah station to the south of the country. At a later stage, lines are expected to connect between Hadera Mizrah, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem or Modi’in stations.