Battle Over Who Will Run Metropolitan Transit Authorities Delays Bill

The Knesset Economic Committee, chaired by MK David Bitan, continued on Sunday preparing the government bill for second and third readings to create metropolitan public transport authorities alongside a national authority. The law is meant to move decisions such as routes, lines, fares and enforcement away from the Transport Ministry and to local bodies that know the area and work directly with residents.

The main dispute now is who will lead the new metropolitan authorities during their first years. The Transport Ministry insists that the head of the national public transport authority should also head the metropolitan bodies for three years, arguing that this is necessary for the setup phase. The current national authority head is Idan Moalem, seen as close to Transport Minister Miri Regev.

Bitan strongly opposes that arrangement. He said the committee could finish preparing the bill, which received priority, but one unresolved issue remains, namely who should lead the metropolitan authorities in the early years. Under the current draft, the national authority head would serve at the top first, and only after three years would the metropolitan chair be elected by the councils of member cities.

Bitan proposed a compromise on Sunday, saying that in Haifa and Jerusalem the mayors should head the authorities from the start, while in Tel Aviv Moalem would lead for only 18 months. The ministry rejected the idea. Officials repeated that the setup must remain under the national authority and that the issue is not personal, but about establishing three metropolitan authorities within three years.

Ophir Cohen, who heads transport, traffic and parking in Tel Aviv, said, "We are one step away from an agreement," adding that they had accepted 18 initial months for the ministry, then one year for Tel Aviv, and had agreed that Assaf Zamir would serve first before elections. The article notes that the ministry is also reluctant to surrender control over the billions of shekels currently passed through the national authority to operating companies, since those funds would shift to the metropolitan authorities once the law passes.