A plan unveiled on Wednesday to avoid a planned hike in public transportation costs has drawn criticism for providing benefits only to certain municipalities, leaving wealthier towns in the center of the country subsidizing the cut.
The plan is slated to leave those living in major cities in the center — including Tel Aviv, Modiin, Rishon Lezion, Petah Tikva, Rosh Ha’ayin, Herzliya, Rehovot and others — paying far more than their counterparts in other towns for monthly passes.
Residents of Jerusalem, virtually all Haredi and Arab municipalities, and West Bank settlements, would be eligible for the discounted prices, without consideration for their personal financial situation.
According to the Calcalist financial newspaper, a resident of Bat Yam, considered to be a lower socioeconomic area, would pay NIS 305 (approximately $82) for a monthly public transport pass, while a resident of nearby Givatayim would pay NIS 610 (approximately $165) — adding up to a difference of NIS 3,660 ($975) annually.
A joint announcement from the transportation and finance ministries proclaimed that the plan had been formulated to avoid the scheduled 12 percent overall rise in the costs of buses and trains.
The plan was delineated as providing a 50% cut in the prices of monthly passes to a wide range of areas, including those in the geographical periphery of the country, those municipalities ranked low on the socioeconomic scale (which would include Jerusalem), as well as to those who receive payments from the National Insurance Institute, aka those who are senior citizens or have disabilities.
View of a machine inside a local bus where passengers pay their fare, in Jerusalem, December 15, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
The plan is also slated to provide a free year of public transportation to discharged soldiers, as well as a 33% discount to those aged 18-26.
Transportation Minister Miri Regev said the discounts were being provided to monthly pass users in order to encourage people to use public transport over private cars to reduce congestion. Individual rides on buses and trains will remain the same price nationwide.
The announcement proclaimed that the benefits would be paid for by “sources in the Transportation Ministry, the Finance Ministry, the Authority for Advancing the Haredi Population” as well as a price hike of the light rail system.
The first leg of the Tel Aviv light rail system is slated to open in August. The plan did not delineate the rise in price, although Hebrew media reports indicated that it would cost either NIS 8 or 9 per ride, compared to NIS 5.5 for a bus trip or a ride on the current light rail in Jerusalem, which is also slated to increase.
The new Allenby underground station of the light rail Red Line in Tel Aviv, June 23, 2022. Some of the mass transit system runs underground. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
Labor MK Gilad Kariv slammed the new plan for providing all Haredi cities with price cuts at the expense of other areas: “There cannot be a situation of discounts only for certain sectors,” he said. “That era is over.”
Labor MK Naama Lazimi said that such an approach only foments hatred between different sectors of the country.
“In the social periphery and those in older neighborhoods there are people who need a discount on public transport — even those who don’t have many children have food insecurity,” she wrote. “Also in the periphery there are those who would be happy for the same budget and investment in education as those over the Green Line.”
Former communications minister Yoaz Hendel said Regev’s plan appeared to be “designed to incite hatred.”
“What is someone who served in the army, pays taxes by law and is in a poor economic situation supposed to think?” he asked. “We need to help the Haredi public get out of poverty and integrate… spilling everyone’s tax money is economic stupidity and unfairness.”
The plan was reminiscent in some ways of a contentious government plan to redistribute local property taxes from well-to-do areas to poorer municipalities.
Under the controversial so-called Arnona Fund plan, the government will take a percentage of property taxes collected by municipal authorities from local businesses, to be put into a fund that will go to aid municipalities that have more modest commercial activity.
Critics accused the coalition of planning to use the funds to pay for sectoral demands made by coalition partners, like subsidies to the Haredi community. They also noted that settlements in the West Bank were exempt from contributing to the fund, but could still benefit from it, and that it is structured in a way that makes Arab municipalities less likely to receive disbursements.
The so-called Arnona Fund was passed into law earlier this year, although the government reportedly plans to alter the wording due to the intense backlash.
