Good news for the residents and visitors of Bet Shemesh..

First of all, we have confirmation from the Minister of Transportation Yisrael Katz himself that Highway 38 is one of the roads that have been specially approved for upgrade, despite the general freeze on new tenders. 8 roads have been approved for upgrade, despite the freeze, due to how dangerous they are. All 8 roads are 1 lane in each direction and will be upgraded to two lanes each way.

The upgrades to these roads will be concluded by 2016.
(source: NRG)

Second of all, the work on Road 10 is being completed. As you can see if you drive to or from Bet Shemesh, the new intersection with a traffic light on Highway 38 is nearly complete.

In the press release announcing the progress of the road works, it adds that the traffic light will be synchronized with the traffic light next to the train tracks (which will eventually be an overpass), and also will be configured to take into account the traffic patterns, giving priority to those leaving Bet Shemesh in the morning hours, and priority to those coming to Bet Shemesh in the evening hours.

In order to complete the work, Road 10 will be shut down from Thursday night at 8 PM until Friday morning at 6 AM when it will [hopefully] reopen. Highway 38 will be sporadically blocked as well, in order to complete the intersection, starting from 9:30 PM on Thursday night. The new intersection is expected to be opened on Friday morning.

Hopefully this will ease some of the traffic problems on Highway 38, as it is meant to. Kol HaKavod to the mayor, Moshe Abutbol, who has pushed this project through after years of stagnation.

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