 Hi friends and subscribers, welcome back to my YouTube channel. My name is Daniel Rosel and this channel focuses on life on the ground here in Jerusalem and in Israel. Recently I've been releasing some videos about the forthcoming municipal elections here in Jerusalem which are due to take place on October 31st. One of the main criticisms against the current leadership of Jerusalem City Council headed by Mayor Moshe Leon has been what critics claim is the excessive level of construction going on throughout the city. Some of this construction is going towards building more housing, especially another cause of criticism, high-rise luxury housing. However a lot of the digging and a lot of digging that hasn't yet begun is being directed towards extending the Jerusalem light rail network. I did a video recently about the state of public transport in Israel generally. As I mentioned in that video, the construction of the Jerusalem light rail began in 2002 and the line began operating in 2011. Currently there is only one line on the network which is technically called the red line but because it's the only one part of the system, locals tend to simply call it the light rail. The Jerusalem transport master plan team was founded in 1967 and is charged with improving transportation solutions in the Jerusalem area. In Hebrew it's called Seva Tochnit Av le Tachporah berojelim. They have a really nice website with some cool graphics showing what the Jerusalem light rail is going to look like so I thought I'd replicate some of the material here. Currently two lines are at various stages of planning and approval. These are the green line and the blue line. The blue line will be built and inaugurated first. I'm sure some people are wondering whether the green line crosses the green line as in the 1967 armistice line that's known by the same name. The answer is that it does whether this irony was an oversight or a simply nobody cared I'm not sure but I thought I was worth throwing that in. The blue line will put down connections between south Jerusalem which is currently not served at all by the red line and Harchutz Wiem in the north of the city. Harchutz Wiem and Malcha are both major technology parks where lots of companies are based so this line is going to be particularly important for commuters wanting to get between the city centre and both of these business clusters. According to the master plan team the line is expected to be opened in segments between 2027 and 2028. Interestingly the line is planned to have 52 stations which is more than the red line which currently has 36. The green line is going to be opened afterwards and is going to extend southward into Gilo and northward into Harchutz Wiem where the main Hebrew university campus is located. Gilo is one of the so-called ring neighbourhoods located along Jerusalem's outskirts and is a popular neighbourhood for commuters to live. Jerusalem's light rail construction plans are ambitious as well as the plans to extend the Jerusalem Tel Aviv train into the city centre and towards the south of the city. Although the massive amount of construction needed to lay the lines in infrastructure is going to be taxing on residents' patience the end result should be a better connected and more accessible Jerusalem. Want to get more videos from me? Please consider liking this video and subscribing to this YouTube channel.