Left wing MKs furious; company spokesman insists decision motivated by "purely financial" reasons.
By JPOST.COM STAFFjp.services2(photo credit: )
The Dan bus company will stop operating lines on Shabbat afternoons, the company said in a statement Wednesday. The lines will be operating only from the end of the religious Shabbat, between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. according.
The decision will affect nine bus lines. The lines affected are considered main lines, including line 1 in Holon, line 9 in Tel Aviv, line 18 in Bat Yam and Tel Aviv, line 24 from Ramat Hasharon, line 35 arriving at Tel Hashomer Hospital, line 64, line 83a from Alphei Menashe to Ra'anana, line 161 from Ariel to the Jordan Valley and line 247 from Kfar Saba to Tel Aviv.
Meretz MK Ran Cohen demanded that Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz act immediately to repeal the decision. "This [decision] is a high robbery and very bad news for the users of public transportation," Cohen said.
Labor party secretary Eitan Cabel lamented the decision, saying that "poor families that have only Saturdays to visit their family members are not interested in the halachic time Shabbat comes out ... and this decision has also social ramifications."
Dan spokesperson Eitan Piksman said the decision was motivated "purely by financial considerations, and has no connection to the status quo. He said polls conducted by Dan showed that the hours canceled were the ones less in demand by the public. "If results were different, we would cancel other time slots."
if(catID != 151){
var cont = `Take Israel home with the new Jerusalem Post Store
