The bus situation in Bet Shemesh is pretty lousy, and the Iryah has been fighting with the government to improve it as much as possible.

Bet Shemesh is a growing city, a very-fast growing city, with new neighborhoods being built and populated like nowhere else in Israel (though the problem is similarly prevalent in many new areas and not just Bet Shemesh or parts of Bet Shemesh.

As soon as new neighborhoods become populated, they need public transportation. The existing amount of public transportation serving existing neighborhoods was already barely adequate, and adding new neighborhoods whose residents will rely largely on the existing lines, with slight changes to the routes to extend them into the new neighborhoods, make the bus lines intolerable for everyone. The bus route extended to the new neighborhoods becomes a longer route that nobody likes, the bus fills up sooner and by the time it reaches the later stops it might not have space to let more people on, and everything becomes uncomfortable. In the meantime, no new lines are added, or few new lines are added, and they continue to extend existing lines.

For now, they built a bus depot between some of the new neighborhoods, to lessen the bus traffic on the roads, and to make it more viable to send some of the lines through the new neighborhoods. As a result of the new depot, many of the bus routes have had to be somewhat altered. For example, my house is relatively close to what used to be the first bus stop in RBS A, and the last stop as well, for most RBS routes. Now that they built the depot, most of the routes have been moved to the depot and the bus lines no longer use the bus stops near my house. Along the way, a few other stops have suffered the same fate. Some do, but many do not. If this is better for the greater good, for more people, so be it, even though it inconveniences some people. The problem above, of longer and fuller routes, is the bigger issue.

I do not know what the solution is - maybe the city is just too big by now for every neighborhood to have its own set of buses, each with local lines and lines going to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and a variety of other cities. As well, having so many more buses on the roads just continues to make traffic int he city worse, as each new set of bus lines servicing the different neighborhoods clogs up the roads. Maybe it is time for a Central Bus Station for inter-city travel, with buses from the neighborhoods going to the CBA and then from there out to the different cities. It makes it less convenient for many, as everyone wants the bus to stop right next to his own house, but the current situation has gotten really bad.

In the meantime, the best bus from RBS to Jerusalem is now being changed. The 419 line ran from RBS C (aka Gimmel), up Tzeelim into RBS A, up Kishon and out of the neighborhood to Jerusalem. it avoided most of the city and even in RBS only ran on the peripheral street. It was a very popular bus because its route was much quicker than many of the others. Now the route of the 419 is being changed to include one of the new neighborhoods, and it is also affecting how it leaves the city. Instead of coming up Tzeelim and Kishon, it will now come from the bridge of RBS C and go up Hayarqon, cutting out the first few stops in RBS A (and it only had several to begin with!), and leaving just the last two before heading out to Jerusalem.

This is a big change that will affect a lot of people, so I am posting it here, so everyone can plan their trips accordingly and go to the right bus stop (and get off at the right bus stop on the way back)..:

From Shemesh Online: