The illegal bike path construction is returning to French Hill

This past Sunday morning municipal workers roped off the lower section of Lehi street in French Hill in order to start the construction work for bike paths next week. This is despite the fact that the work on Churchill boulevard has not been completed yet containing entire sections that have stood in a half finished state for months. This is also despite the fact that the bike path project has proven itself dangerous to the public at large (for an explanation read here and here while for specific incidents read here and here).

Word has it that the order to proceed onward with this project comes directly from the head of the Transportation & Infrastructure Development Division in the Jerusalem Municipality, Kobi Bartov. The Amuta "North Jerusalem Residents for Safety and Quality of Life" has filed a claim in court against this department based on the discovery that the bike paths are being constructed without any legal authorization. It turns out that the department in question did not submit its plans to the Town Planning Scheme and did not acquire a building permit. Instead it attempted to justify the work as what is known as "traffic arrangements". However, according to the High Court of Justice's definition of the term, projects on the scale of the bike paths do not fit within the scope of such arrangements (for more information on the illegality of the bike path project read here). It seems that this incursion into Lehi street is a desperate attempt by the Transportation & Infrastructure Development Division to expand the area of construction as much as possible while establishing "facts on the ground" prior to the court hearing in the next few months.

Lehi street this past Sunday morning - the municipality wishes to start work next week.

Churchill Boulevard is far from being finished and yet the city wishes to expand work to Lehi street.

This section of Churchill Boulevard has sat in a half-finished state for months since the municipality expanded its construction work to other sections of the street in order to expand as quickly as possible. Now it wants to do so again...

President of the Hebrew University is injured while using bike path

Last Friday the "Yediot Yerushaliem" weekly reported the unfortunate news concerning the President of the Hebrew University - Prof. Menachem Ben-Sasson's accident while trying out the municipality's newly installed bike path near the institution's vicinity. It turns out that Prof. Ben-Sasson, an experienced bicyclist, was riding along when his pedal got caught on one of the large concrete curbs lining the path. Multiple sources (including this blog) had previously warned the municipality that these curbs, ranging in hight between 15-20 cm, pose a very serious threat to bicyclists and are not in compliance with the Ministry of Transportation's guidelines that limit them to 5cm.

Ignoring the underlying issue of the dangers posed by these curbs, the municipality responded to the accident with the following statement: "The Bike Paths are currently under construction and their execution is not yet complete, similarly these paths have not yet been handed over to the municipality and it is not recommended to ride in them until work has been completed. It should be noted that the bike paths are being executed according to the standards of the ministry of transportation and the police. The Transportation & Infrastructure Development division will look into adding signage into the area." It seems that the city wishes to insinuate that it was the University President's own fault for choosing to ride on a bike path whose "execution is not yet complete" and that he should have know better. However, any passerby can attest to the fact that the majority of the bike paths that have been constructed until now in the area, including the one which Prof. Ben-Sasson tried, are in fact structurally complete. The only work left is to provide proper signage and paint the path in the appropriate colors. It would seem that the Municipality itself feels these paths are completely safe, otherwise they would have provided signs indicating that bicyclists should not make use of them yet. Only now, after the accident, have they even conceded to look into the prospect of adding adequate signage.

The section of the bike path that the President of the Hebrew University rode on. Construction of the path is complete. There is no signage indicating that people should not use it.

The other end of the same path. Again it is complete and without any signs or warnings informing people otherwise.

Yediot Yerushalayim Today

Be sure to check out the article on the bike lane fiasco in today's edition of Yediot Yerushalayim!

Let your voice be heard by phone call to the Jerusalem Municipality on Thursday, July 14th!

"North Jerusalem Residents for Safety and Quality of Life (registered amuta)" informs:

On Thursday, July 14^th, from 16:00 – 19:00, the Municipality invites residents to contact senior officials in the city government, including the General Manager and City Engineer, by direct phone call. Dial the Municipality's hotline 106. (For more details see: http://www.jerusalem.muni.il/jer_main/defaultnew.asp?lng=1)

This is your opportunity to lodge your complaint about the dangers inherent in municipality's ill-concieved bike path project. Here are some important points to remember:

• The Municipality has disregarded the will of the residents, the opinion of experts and even the objections of organizations such as Hadassah Hospital and the Hebrew University. Last week the Municipality unequivocally came to the decision to continue the project in its current form with minimal and negligible changes to the original plans, despite the outcry of the parties mentioned above.
• This project is being carried out in a substandard manner and not in accordance with the guidelines of the Ministry of Transportation.
• This project cannot be considered a “Traffic Arrangement” as the Municipality claims, since it does not solve a specific local traffic problem. Rather, it is actually a pilot program for a city-wide change in transportation.
• This project does not have the necessary legal authorization, as it does not have a building permit and it did not create the necessary changes to the “Town Planning Scheme”!
• The Municipality seems to feel that it is above the law it forces others to follow. Unacceptable!

Call the Municipality. Let them know that residents, students and bicyclists alike oppose the Bike Path Project as unsafe.

Encourage your friends and neighbors to call as well. It takes only a few minutes to let your voice be heard.

This may be your last chance to voice your opinion directly to the city on this issue.

Thank you very much for your help.

Sincerely,

North Jerusalem Residents for Safety and Quality of Life (registered amuta)

News article

Today's ידיעות ירושלים contains an article by ציפי מלכוב about the bike path project.

Obstructing Ambulances as they save people's lives

Today the municipality roped off and marked an entirely new section of Churchill Boulevard for the construction of its ill-concieved and poorly planned bike path project. This was done in spite of persistent protests on the part of the Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus, as well such groups as "North Jerusalem Residents for Safety and Quality of Life".

Bike paths had recently been constructed on the upper portion of Churchill Boulevard that stretches between the Hospital and University. There, it has become very apparent that the narrowing of the streets that the project has entailed has caused severe traffic problems for passing vehicles, especially buses and trucks, while the bike paths themselves are infrequently used due to their poor and dangerous design. The width of the driving lanes was sacrificed for these bike paths which meant that no buffer zone was left at all between parked cars and passing traffic. As such, a single car that opens its door or bus that lets off passengers brings the entire street to a stand still. At the same time people exiting parked cars are endangered as they now must step out into moving traffic or the trench-like bike paths.

These same problems are now being extended down the hill to the section of Churchill Boulevard that acts as the main artery for the Hospital. While the problems created on the upper section of the road were sufficiently deplorable, they will be even more hazardous in this new section. This is due to the fact that this section is the main means of access to the Hospital. First and foremost, ambulances traverse this stretch of road. They must frequently race to or from the hospital in order to save a person's life. The traffic obstructions that this project creates will rob them of precious time needed to prevent deaths. The municipality knows that their work will cause problems for the ambulance drivers. However their response was that the ambulances will simply have to drive with a set of wheels on the shrubbery-filled traffic islands running down the center of the street. On top of that, this section of Churchill Boulevard provides the primary parking for visitors to the hospital, among them the infirm and sick, who will be forced to step out into passing traffic in order to receive their medical treatment.

This is the situation in the upper section of Churchill Boulevard and will be the same in the lower section where ambulances need to rush to and from the hospital to save lives.

An ambulance on its way to the hospital on Churchill Boulevard. The municipality feels that it is perfectly acceptable to force ambulances such as this to drive in the shrubbery as they race to and from the hospital to save lives.

The Bike Lane Project is Illegal - No building permit and no תב''ע

The 'North Jerusalem Residents for Safety and Quality of Life' Amuta found, through the help of their lawyer, that the dangerous Bike Path Project of the Jerusalem Municipality that has already caused a number of accidents and injuries, is being carried out without legal authorization. When asked, the Municipality confessed that the project does not, in fact, have a building permit. On top of that, the changes required by the Ministry of Transportation and the Laws of the State of Israel were not introduced to the תב''ע (Town Planning Scheme). Bike Paths are a new concept in Israeli transportation and constitute a 'substantial deviation from the planning scheme'. Such substantial change requires an emendation of the תב''ע (which is the legal plan that regulates the usage of land including streets) before being implemented.

The Municipality tried to defend the illegal execution of the project by claiming that it was a merely a 'Traffic Arrangement'. However, as was clarified in the Danziger Ruling in the High Courts about a week ago, a 'Traffic Arrangement' is used to solve a traffic problem in a specific location, and cannot be used to introduce a substantial change in the scheme of roads and streets. The Bike Path Project is a pilot program that is attempting to completely change the nature of the roads and therefore needs its principles to first be introduced to the תב''ע.

If there is no building permit, תב''ע or 'traffic arrangement', what is there? Unfortunately we have been left with a "Chelm" Plan that has not passed the legal procedures that would have prevented such a project from threatening the public safety.

It has come to our attention that on Sunday the illegal construction work will resume in the streets of French Hill. Stay posted to this blog to find out how you can help stop this disaster.