100 protest outside Supreme Court against Highway 1 changes

Residents of neighborhoods around the Highway 1 Tel Aviv-Jerusalem corridor demonstrate during a petition for stop-work order on expansion.

By MELANIE LIDMAN
Highway 1 protest (photo credit: Evan Tov))
Highway 1 protest
(photo credit: Evan Tov))
More than 100 residents of neighborhoods around the Highway 1 Tel Aviv-Jerusalem corridor outside of Jerusalem protested on Monday morning in front of the Supreme Court during a petition for a stop-work order on the expansion to Highway 1.
The local councils of Mateh Yehuda and Mevasseret Zion filed the petition and claimed that the expansion will cause more traffic rather than alleviating jams, as well as create a dangerous situation by leaving only one intersection with no alternative for more than 200,000 residents to access their homes.
The High Court of Justice recommended that the project should return to the National Infrastructures Committee for further consideration, given the objections raised in the petition. The attorney general and the Public Works Department were granted a week to examine the issues raised by the residents. The recommendation refers only to the portion of the highway expansion directly outside of Jerusalem, not the entire project.
The semi-public National Roads Company can continue to publish tenders and look for contractors while the issue is being discussed, the court ruled.
In his testimony, Eyal Maimo, the lawyer for the residents and local councils, called the expansion a “catastrophe” that “was based on obscene blunders, incorrect information, and inadequate examination of alternatives.”
In a demonstration of solidarity with the protesters, municipal services in Mevasseret Zion were on a one-day strike, and the public high school was delayed until 10 a.m.