Highway 16 is a planned highway to alleviate the traffic congestion at the Ben Gurion Boulevard/Jaffa Road western entrance to Jerusalem and provide direct access to the south and central sections of the city from the west. The project will cost approximately 1.5 billion shekels and is expected to be completed by the end of 2023.
Highway
The planned Highway would connect Highway 1 at the new Motza Interchange and Jerusalem's Highway 50 at Givat Mordechai Interchange. The road would travel mostly through a series of tunnels under the west Jerusalem neighborhoods of Har Nof and Yefeh Nof and the parking lots of Shaare Zedek Medical Center. In the center, an above ground interchange would be built in the valley of Nahal Revida adjacent to the Pi Glilot Fuel Terminal to connect to Derech Yosef Weitz leading to Givat Shaul. The road would be constructed as a four lane freeway with a speed limit of 80 km/h.
History
The road was first proposed in the 1990s. Originally, the road was supposed to skirt around the western and southern slopes of Har Nof before entering a tunnel at Nahal Revida continuing eastward under Yefeh Nof. This would have created nearly a kilometer of fully open road through the Jerusalem Forest. This plan was met with stiff opposition by the Jewish National Fund and a variety of "Green" groups due to ecological damage to the forest. As a result, the plan was changed to include a tunnel under Har Nof with an intermediate above-ground interchange at Nahal Revida. The program was stopped in 2003 to conduct environmental studies and consider an alternative to the Nahal Revida Interchange. By the end of 2007, the National Infrastructure Committee decided to adopt the plan pending clarifications and public review. In 2010, the plan again moved forward with an indemnity agreement between the Jerusalem Municipality and the Israel Ministry of Transport. At the same time, responsibility for building the road was shifted from the Moriah Jerusalem Development Corporation to the National Roads Company of Israel. Economic and environmental studies were updated. A plan to build the road as one long tunnel with Nahal Ravida Interchange underground was rejected both for economic reasons and because of the need for massive ventilation facilities that would cause greater environmental damage to the forest. The plan was approved in 2011, again with further delays pending public review. At the end of 2012, according to the National Roads Company, the plan has been approved and budgeted. After many delays, the contract for construction was finally awarded in August 2018, with construction expected to begin in 2019 and last through 2023. Following the death of Talmudic scholar and former Sephardi Chief Rabbi of IsraelOvadia Yosef in 2013, Israeli Minister of TransportYisrael Katz announced that the road would be named in his honor. However, the Jerusalem Municipality Names Committee, which has jurisdiction in the matter, declared in 2017 that the road would be named in honor of former Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon.
