Victory is won on the Arava Highway!

12/06/22

An amazing victory for the activists of the Arava Highway! Here’s what went down and how it happened:

The Arava Highway, also known as Route 90, is for the duration of its portion between the Ketura and Arava Junctions a long, monotonous, dangerous one-way road. Moreover, it is the recipient of the majority of traffic heading towards the city of Eilat. The Ministry of Transportation announced plans to widen it, and those plans awaited implementation for years, from 2010-2015. A decade has passed since the decision was approved -- congestion has grown severely with the increased population and the closure of the Sde Dov airport in 2019. We demand that the Arava Highway from Ketura Junction to Arava Junction be widened! 

Yonatan Narisna wrote the above powerful call-to-action on his campaign to expand and upgrade the highway which he launched on My Zazim. He continued:

On behalf of the 12 million people who travel on the Arava Highway have seen and experienced firsthand the dangers of this route. We continue to sound the alarm, but it seems like that’s not enough to get the state to implement its own planned solution, which has gathered dust for years. The solution is straightforward: widen the Arava Highway to have two paved lanes in each direction.

The campaign was directed at Minister of Transportation Merav Michaeli, and garnered over 7,000 signatures that were delivered directly to her. 

Public pressure proved powerful, and at the end of May 2022, Minister Michaeli announced that the Arava Highway would be upgraded in its entirety, from the Arava Junction all the way to the city of Eilat. We will keep connected with the amazing activists leading this struggle and see it through in order to ensure that the announced upgrades occur.