The Tel Aviv Planning and Building Committee has “relaunched” the Ayalon Expressway Cover Plan on a relatively small scale, although possibly as a first step to the full plan.
The committee decided at its last meeting “to forward the plan documents to the national infrastructure committee subject to the procedure for promoting a national infrastructure plan, and to recommend to the national infrastructure committee the rapid progress of this important strategic plan. The decision aims, in practice, to call into question the plan number 132 which was initially submitted in 2016 during the approval of the master plan for the Ayalon motorway. The plan includes 2,500 dunams (625 acres) of public parks.
The current plan will be promoted in a significantly reduced format. It is to expand two bridges between the Hashalom Interchange and the Arlozorov Interchange on the Ayalon Highway, which would create a covered area of 43 dunams (10.75 acres) of open park, planted areas, trails pedestrian and cycle paths and more without any major construction except for small buildings like kiosks, coffee carts and various small pavilions and stalls.
Much has been said about the reduction of the plan and the transition from a very extensive roofing of the Hagana Bridge in the south to Yarkon Park in the north, at a cost of around 2 billion shekels, to the roofing of only two of the bridges.
The reasons for this reduction are mostly technical, and mainly stem from the difficulty of finding free land for the foundation strip, a strip of land on which the elements that would carry the cover and maintain it are supposed to be erected. Suitable land for this was found in the area of the two bridges, so the plan “shrank” to only enlarge both of them.
However, it seems that this is not the end of the story when it comes to the complete vision of the Ayalon coating: “This is only the first phase of this great undertaking”, says architect Uri Mazor, partner and director of Mazor. First firm of architects and urban planners, which is part of the new plan team. “It’s a start, like any tower that first develops as part of a grand plan. At the current stage, the engineering, statutory and technical potential is to maintain those two roofs, but it’s a plan that can expand and expand and become more coverage.In the future, it will be possible to develop additional plans that will cover the other parts above the Ayalon as well.
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – March 5, 2023.
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