Living in central Jerusalem can be defined by a few key characteristics: the shuk, the noise, and, of course, the light rail.
Nearly a full year after we here at The Jerusalem Post bemoaned the temporary loss of the Haturim station, the payoff has arrived, and the L3 segment – the first section to open as part of the broader Green Line project and currently highlighted in yellow – opened to the public this week, running from Haturim to the Malha Mall.
The city went all in on the yellow branding, with balloon arches at every station, yellow signs, and lemon-flavored popsicles marking the grand opening.
The line’s opening was headlined by a who’s who of the Jerusalem infrastructure world, and was celebrated by Transportation Minister Miri Regev, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion, and Cfir CEO Oren Cohen.
The L3 route spans seven kilometers, running from Haturim station west through the Central Bus Station and the Navon rail station, before heading south to the Knesset and Hebrew University’s Givat Ram campus. It then stops at Teddy Stadium and Pais Arena before ending near the Malha Mall and the expanding Gav Yam tech park. The segment adds 12 stations to the network alongside the existing Haturim interchange and the Central Bus Station/Navon hub.
What matters most is that for the first time, Jerusalemites can transfer from one light rail line to another, and residents finally get to see what all that construction and noise has been about.
“It’s very reliable and convenient, and I don’t have to worry about missing my bus because, you know, it actually comes on time,” one passenger said after the launch. “Getting to Malha is a breeze now.”
Red Line recently expanded
The Red Line, the city’s first light rail corridor, has operated for 15 years, with recent expansions creating a vital link between Neve Yaakov and Hadassah Ein Kerem, carrying 200,000 riders daily.
However, as is common for public transport projects worldwide, the launch faced severe delays. Globes reported that the Green Line’s L3 phase opened 10 years later than planned, whereas earlier projections had envisioned the entire line being fully completed by 2025.
The delays over the past few years were compounded by the rounds of fighting with Iran, which disrupted construction and pushed the project’s timeline further.
The venture was initially approved by City Council in 2016, with tenders issued soon afterward, and construction has stretched across nearly a decade. The Green Line is also following a pattern familiar to residents: the Red Line’s extensions, initially slated for completion in 2023, were repeatedly pushed back before opening.
For residents along the route, the wait has meant years of construction, detours, and disrupted access to streets and businesses in areas including Givat Mordechai, Pat, and Jaffa Road.
But whether the delays were over a decade or just one year, the L3 is finally here, and Israel’s officials have been eager to frame the Green Line as a turning point for Jerusalem, even if some passengers found themselves decidedly underwhelmed.
“It smells like plastic which was just poured into a mold,” one passenger stated. “Also, it’s somehow already dirty, and I’m not surprised.”
For Mayor Moshe Lion, the opening marks a transformation in the city’s public transit landscape. “Jerusalem is moving from a city that has a light rail to a city with a light rail network,” he said, noting that the L3 marks the first step toward a fully interconnected transit grid.
“Together with the expanding park-and-ride facilities, this will soon become the city’s transportation backbone, transform its appearance and quality of life, connect neighborhoods, employment centers, and major institutions, and enable drivers to leave their private vehicles at home, and thus reduce traffic congestion and air pollution. L3 is not the finish line. The network will expand with additional lines, connect more and more parts of Jerusalem, and turn it into an accessible and advanced city like capitals and major cities around the world.”
Transportation Minister Miri Regev, who toured the line with Lion ahead of its opening, has similarly cast the project as part of a broader transportation revolution in the capital.
“Jerusalem continues to lead Israel’s public transport revolution and to demonstrate the direction in which we are taking transport in the major metropolitan areas: fast, efficient, interconnected, and accessible mass transit networks,” Regev said.
“The opening of the L3 line is a big step in our vision of connecting Israel and enabling all of its residents to reach their destinations quickly, comfortably, and safely.”
The next milestone is slated for December, when the L4 segment is set to link the Central Bus Station to Gilo in the south, the city’s largest neighborhood. This next phase will help more than 100,000 residents who are underserved by the light rail.
From there, the Green Line is expected to extend north toward Hebrew University’s Mount Scopus campus, scheduled to open by June 2027, running through French Hill and connecting the university’s two campuses by rail, which has been discussed by planners long before ground was even broken.
Looking to the future, the city has already begun construction on the Blue Line, set to run 24 km. from Ramot in the north to Gilo in the south, with 40 new stations.
However, that phase of the light rail isn’t projected to launch before 2029 or 2030, and the construction will bring several more years of the same street-level disruption residents just lived through with the Green Line.
Hopefully, the city will feel the same relief when that line opens as well.
Last week’s launch highlights Jerusalem’s success with surface light rail, contrasting with the far more complex and costly engineering of Tel Aviv’s $50 billion heavy underground metro system, which remains years away from completion.
While construction formally began with a cornerstone ceremony in December 2025, the tenders for the actual tunneling work are only now moving through pre-qualification, with operations not projected before the early-to-mid 2030s.
Bragging rights are great, but the stakes go further.
The light rail could eventually carry as many as 400,000 riders a day, easing a traffic problem that has only worsened, as Israel continues to suffer from some of the worst traffic congestion in the OECD.
For a city like Jerusalem, a genuine rail network does change who can live where and still remain connected to the heart of the city.
“Knowing that I don’t have to live right in the center of the city to benefit from the accessible transport will make living in Jerusalem easier in the long-term,” another passenger said.
One week in, it’s like the new stations have been with us all along, as commuters have already gotten used to checking updated schedules. The balloon arches have come down, but the trains keep on running.
For a city that has waited the better part of a decade for this moment, the milestone wasn’t really the ribbon-cutting, but the ordinariness of a new option simply existing.
The next test comes in December, when the line pushes farther south to Gilo. For now, Jerusalem has what it didn’t have a week ago: a network, not just a line.