Jerusalem central bus station

The Jerusalem Central Bus Station

Jerusalem Central Bus Station is the main bus depot in Jerusalem, Israel and one of the busiest bus stations in the country. Located on Jaffa Road near the entrance to the city, it serves Egged and Dan intercity bus routes. City buses pick up and discharge passengers across the street on Jaffa Road and on Shazar Boulevard, which can be accessed via an underground pedestrian passageway.

The Central Bus Station opened in September 2001 on the site of the old Jerusalem Bus Station, built in the 1960s. [1] The old station was a long, single-story building with an open-air bus depot behind it. Passengers embarked and disembarked at curbside on an outdoor platform. In the 1950s, the main bus station was located in the heart of downtown Jerusalem, behind the Pillar Building ("Binyan Ha'amudim") on Jaffa Road.

Jerusalem's new bus station was commissioned in order to accommodate the increasing flow of bus traffic as well as to implement security protocols for screening incoming and outgoing passengers. During construction of the new bus station, operations were moved to a large, two-level parking lot several blocks east on Jaffa Road.

Interior design

The new Central Bus Station has two levels of underground parking, three main levels, and five upper floors of office space. The first main level is a shopping concourse and food court. The second main level serves as both a shopping concourse and the arrivals hall for incoming bus passengers. Since the building is constructed on the side of a hill, the first and second main levels both have a ground-level entrance/exit to Jaffa Road. Besides retail stores, the concourse includes bakery outlets, a video game parlor, and free-standing gift sellers.

The third main level serves as the departures hall, with 22 bus platforms. Passengers wait at numbered doors for the bus to pull into its slot in the indoor parking lot, then go through the door into the parking lot to board. Large digital display boards post upcoming departure times.

While most platforms accommodate more than one bus route, popular routes, such as Jerusalem-Tel Aviv have a separate platform and run more frequently.

Passengers and their baggage are screened by security personnel every time they enter the Central Bus Station building. That is, departing passengers must go through security clearance when they enter the building from Jaffa Road and may then board buses without additional security checks. Riders returning to Jerusalem are dropped off in the garage on the other side of the building. They may choose to exit out to the street—in which case they do not need to pass through security—or go into the bus station building—in which case they must go through a security check. People wishing to visit only the shopping concourses must also clear security. As is the case for most commercial security checkpoints in Israel, gun owners are exempt from security searches, it being presumed that anyone who has been vetted by the government to carry a loaded firearm in public has no criminal or terrorist intentions. In addition to building security, Egged has its own team of uniformed security personnel patrolling the indoor bus parking lots.

Controversy

The decision to include a shopping concourse within the bus station (and through which passengers must pass on their way to the departures level) met with vocal criticism from rabbis and leaders in the local Haredi community. Although the bus station/shopping mall design was already commonplace in other cities, the old Jerusalem bus station—as well as the temporary bus station erected during construction—only contained a small coffee shop and cigarette and magazine stands. To the Haredim, the prospect of a multi-level shopping mall would create an atmosphere of levity diametrically opposed to their modest lifestyle, exerting an untoward influence on their youth as they boarded the buses.

Community activists had already begun operating their own "mehadrin" (religiously-conscious) bus line between Bnei Brak and Jerusalem in order to pressure Egged to open a similar line. "Mehadrin" bus lines are characterized by separate seating of men and women and no radio being played by the driver. Now activists began petitioning the Ministry of Transportation to allow Egged to open a departure point for buses traveling to Haredi destinations that would board outside the Central Bus Station.

After protracted negotiations, Egged opened a special platform (#22) in the Central Bus Station which is located far from the other platforms, where passengers boarding its Route 400 to Bnei Brak sit in relative privacy. In addition, the bus company also agreed to launch a new, "mehadrin" Route 402 between Jerusalem and Bnei Brak. This route departs from Egged's city bus terminus at Har Hotzvim in northern Jerusalem, accommodating Haredi riders who wish to avoid the Central Bus Station altogether. The Har Hotzvim terminus has since expanded to include "mehadrin" bus departures to other Haredi destinations such as Safed and Ashdod.

A second bone of contention was the proposed opening of a McDonald's franchise in the food court. Most McDonald's restaurants, including the one in the Jerusalem city center, do not have kashrut certification from the rabbinate. Although this McDonald's franchise was in the process of applying for a kashrut certificate, the rabbinate conditioned its certification on McDonald's making all its other current and future outlets, kosher. McDonald's rejected this demand and announced it would open without a certificate, whereupon Haredi activists threatened a mass boycott of the Central Bus Station by Haredi bus passengers if the McDonald's did open.

The Natzba real-estate firm which owns the bus station responded by canceling McDonald's contract. McDonald's took it to court and won; Natzba was forced to pay it 100,000 shekels in pre-trial expenses. McDonald's opened its franchise in the Central Bus Station without rabbinical supervision or approval. The Haredi boycott never materialized.

Bus-train connection

The Central Bus Station will soon be the site of train stations for both the "Red Line" of the upcoming Jerusalem Light Rail system and the planned high-speed Israel Railways train line from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Both stations are being constructed in the outdoor square facing the Central Bus Station on Jaffa Road. The light rail station, scheduled to open in 2009, will operate above-ground, while the high-speed train terminus, scheduled to open in 2011, will operate underground. There are future plans to extend the high-speed train line line from the Central Bus Station to the Jerusalem Malha Train Station, the terminus of the current railroad.

References

• "Bus 402 from Jerusalem to Bnei Brak Launched", by Betzalel Kahn, De'iah VeDibur, Oct. 31, 2001.
• "The Burger They Love to Hate", by Eetta Prince-Gibson, Jerusalem Post, May 31, 2002.

See also

• Tel Aviv Central Bus Station
• Egged Bus Cooperative
• List of Egged bus lines

External Links

[2] A nostalgic website dedicated to HAMEKASHER bus company operated in Jerusalem 1931-1967]

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