Israel’s New Trains Will be a White Elephant

By Moshe Feiglin

“I am afraid that all the construction going on in Israel for the new train system is going to become a farce,” said Moshe Feiglin on Wednesday. “It is bad enough that the small businesses along the train’s planned route will be destroyed without compensation. And it is bad enough that Israel is investing billions in this project and will never cover its  investment. But there is something much more fundamental that is going to turn the train into a white elephant: We simply don’t need it.”

“Ten years from now,” Feiglin predicts,  “everybody is going to drive in driver-less cars. They will be available within minutes, very fast and very safe. They will park themselves and return to us after our meetings,” Feiglin continued.

“What Israel needs now is more highways and parking lots. Not trains that nobody will use. It is like investing billions in telephone infrastructure when cell-phones are just about to break onto the market. Who will want to travel in a train in 20 years from now when his car will take him door to door, park itself and return to pick him up? We are fighting yesterday’s war. It would be much better to invest in tomorrow’s reality,” Feiglin concluded.