Jerusalem opens Green Line tramway

On 21 August the Israeli city of Jerusalem opened the first part of its Green Line line 3 tramway, 7km with 12 new stops. The line runs from HaTurim to Mlha, passing through the city centre, with an eight-minute service (but not on the Sabbath, Friday evening to Saturday evening). It shares tracks there with the city’s first tramway, the Red Line opened in 2011. A key interchange will be at Yitzhak Navon railway station.  

 

The new tramway is the first part of a 20km line with 41 stops that will connect Gilo in the south with Mount Scopus in the north, linking both campuses of the Hebrew University. It should carry about 250 000 passengers/day when complete. The next section to open, in December 2026, includes a link to the central bus station. Further expansion is programmed for June 2027. The Green Line, costing about EUR 2.86bn, is part of the larger J-Net project that also includes extensions to the Red Line and the new Blue Line. The Green Line is worked by coupled sets of CAF five-section trams, part of an order for 114 that is supplementing the 46 Alstom Citadis on the Red Line. A coupled set can carry up to 500 passengers. The CAF trams were built in Newport, Wales, after workers at the Besain factory in Spain expressed opposition to working on the contract on the grounds that it would solidify Israeli occupation of settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. 

 

The Blue Line will be 31km with 53 stops, opening in phases from 2029. The original order was for 132 33m PESA trams from Poland, but the operating consortium JTrain has since changed the manufacturer to CRRC in China. This too has triggered political pressures due to US security concerns, so a definitive order is still uncertain.