Jerusalem Light Rail Reaches Teddy Stadium But Won't Stop After Major Games

Jerusalem's new light rail line now extends to a station near Teddy Stadium after years of infrastructure work. However, the city and police have decided that after large sporting events, the light rail will not stop at the Teddy station for 30 minutes. This decision forces tens of thousands of fans to walk approximately 800 meters to the next station, Gonen, sparking anger among Beitar Jerusalem supporters who question the logic of building a station that is unusable when most needed.

The decision aims to prevent bottlenecks caused by the simultaneous exit of large crowds from the stadium, which seats over 30,000 people and regularly sells out for Beitar Jerusalem matches. Signage and stewards will guide fans to the Gonen station, where multiple light rail vehicles will be ready to depart in quick succession using a "fill and go" system to efficiently handle the crowd.

A Jerusalem municipality official involved in the planning explained to N12 that the approach is not arbitrary but based on studied models from major European stadiums such as Allianz Arena and San Siro. The official emphasized that the walking route from the stadium exit takes several minutes and that this method significantly eases congestion. Given that Beitar Jerusalem has around 20,000 season ticket holders and most games are sold out, concentrating the crowd at the nearby station was deemed impractical.

The new light rail line L3 thus balances infrastructure capabilities with crowd management strategies to improve post-game flow, despite fan frustration over the station's limited use during peak exit times.