No bridge so far

Despite an ad campaign announcing that bridge would be raised on Monday, officials now hope it will be placed by Hanukka.

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
jerusalem bridge 88 (photo credit: )
jerusalem bridge 88
(photo credit: )
Jerusalemites can be forgiven for thinking that the municipality was "crying wolf" this week. Large advertisements were placed by the city in all the secular and religious Hebrew-language local papers announcing that the "mast of the Calatrava Bridge" at the city's western entrance would be hoisted on Monday. The municipality warned that between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., only two lanes - each going in a different direction - on the key artery of Sderot Herzl would be open during the work. But although some residents saw the ads and decided to change their plans to pass through, nothing happened. A call to Moriah, the municipal company that is building the bridge, provided an explanation: The company did not receive a final permit from the Israel Police to close most of the lanes, and the work would be postponed to Wednesday during the same hours, Moriah spokesman Yehoshua Mor-Yosef said. He added that the remaining part of the mast that will have 70 steel "strings" attached to suspend the bridge in mid-air would not be installed on Wednesday, but only the ninth of 12 sections. Although the first eight were installed with giant cranes at night, the ninth couldn't because it overhangs Sderot Herzl, and workers need daylight to do a proper job, he said. But as the Wednesday deadline passed, nothing happened. Another call to Mor-Yosef, who said the police did not approve the closing of lanes for the hoisting of the steel section - which is lying behind the barriers - because at 3 p.m., the official memorial ceremony for Yitzhak Rabin on Mount Herzl - nearly three kilometers south - was to be held. Mor-Yosef could not say when the ninth segment would be installed, but he said the whole mast would be in place (maybe) by Hanukka.