Jerusalem advances blue line works and plans 2-km city-center tunnel

Jerusalem has expanded construction activity on the 31-km Blue Line light rail corridor, issuing early December municipal notices that confirm continued utility and surface infrastructure work along King George Street, the alignment’s most constrained segment and the planned location of a 2-km tunnel beneath the central commercial core. In a December construction notice posted on its official website—a Hebrew-language bulletin that is region-restricted for users outside Israel—the municipality stated that “the Jerusalem Municipality and Eden Company have begun infrastructure work along King George Street as part of the Blue Line project.” The notice details staged road modifications and utility relocations to clear the alignment for future guideway installation and to prepare for underground-work staging.

The central section is planned to pass beneath King George Street, the Ben Yehuda pedestrian zone and the Red Line’s Jaffa Street corridor, an area that includes the Mahane Yehuda Market district and the Jaffa Street axis before the route continues south toward Gilo. Local reporting on city materials indicates the plan includes a 2-km tunnel with several underground stations to maintain surface mobility and avoid conflicts with Red Line operations, a length and station concept supported by technical papers from GeoConsult.

The Blue Line is being delivered as a public-private partnership under a 2023 concession awarded to a consortium of Danya Cebus, Dan Transportation and COMSA, as previously reported by The Jerusalem Post. Municipal planning documents describe the Blue Line as connecting Ramot in the north with Gilo in the south through the city center. The partnership scope covers about 31 km across the Blue axis and its Azure and Purple connector lines, with the main Gilo-to-Ramot trunk measuring roughly 20 km. Government and finance-sector documents continue to cite an estimated cost of about $2.8 billion for the partnership project, and officials have not released an updated figure. Officials continue to reference a phased rollout, with service between Gilo and the city center expected to begin later this decade and full Blue Line operations planned by 2030, consistent with partnership documentation that outlines staged activation beginning in 2028.

SYSTRA prepared preliminary design for the line with local partners, defining the base alignment and station concepts, while GeoConsult reports undertaking underground and geotechnical studies for the midtown segment. The municipality has not released documentation on the tunneling method, construction sequencing or contract-level details identifying the excavation and station-box contractors, and a start date for tunneling has not been provided.

Regional engineering-geology sources cited in municipal and project materials characterize Jerusalem’s subsurface as Cretaceous limestone and dolomite of the Judean Group with interbedded chalk and marl, conditions that can include karstic voids, jointed rock and perched groundwater. The city’s ridge-and-valley topography concentrates development along narrow spines and leaves steep slopes with limited overburden in the center, while dense archaeological deposits add further constraints. The Jerusalem Light Rail Systemwide Design Criteria accommodate these constraints by permitting mainline gradients up to about 7%—rising to 9% in exceptional cases—and horizontal curve radii as tight as 25 m in highly constrained areas. The criteria also define the tunnel’s structural envelope, including clearance for vehicle dynamics, the 750 V DC overhead contact system and emergency-walkway space, which together determine tunnel diameter and station-box geometry. Noise and vibration thresholds may require resilient trackforms through parts of the commercial spine to protect sensitive and historic structures.

Municipal materials emphasize the need for a tunnel because central corridors cannot simultaneously accommodate an at-grade guideway, heavy pedestrian flows and dense utility networks. After construction, portions of King George Street are planned to shift toward transit-priority and pedestrian-focused use. Additional municipal bulletins are expected as utility relocation, excavation staging and station-area preparations continue along the approaches to the tunnel zone.