This is old news, and it's actually not as clear-cut as you make it sound. Israel Railways is in deep **** financially, because of excessive spending and flawed cost assessment for the various projects. The Ministry of Finance is trying to teach them a lesson, and in general, that's a good thing. Do you want billions of your tax money go down the drain because of IR's ineptness?
Naturally, some projects need to be cancelled. I agree that the southern line project is extremely important, but IR is kind of committed to several other projects, which are probably much more important. To remind you, here are the current major projects in planning or construction (including the 'frozen' ones). I will order them by their importance, as far as I see it.
1) High-speed Tel Aviv-Jerusalem line
2) Conversion of the Tel Aviv-Be'er Sheva line to dual-track and straightening curves/avoiding road-rail intersections
3) Tel Aviv-Ashdod line via Bat Yam/Holon, Rishon West and Yavne
4) Valley line (Afula, Beit She'an) - the importance of this line is actually highly underestimated, because it is mostly important as a freight line and most Israelis are generally concerned with passenger lines.
5) Southern line (Sderot, Netivot, Ofakim)
6) Straightening curves and avoiding road-rail intersections on the Tel Aviv-Beit Shemesh line
7) Line to Karmi'el via Ahihud.
Basically, I belive that the southern line is very important, especially to strengthen the south, but if you take things into perspective, the other projects will help so much more. Not to mention, they will be more profitable and allow IR to expand further and build the southern line later. If the non-profitable lines are built first, they will be deemed as a failure (as you said yourself, bad leadership, they don't understand the real effects of this stuff), and other very important (and profitable) projects will be cancelled.
Unfortunately though, currently the only project progressing as it should is the Tel Aviv-Ashdod line via Bat Yam/Holon, which is very sad. I'd like to see the TA-Jerusalem line completed faster. |