Is Israel Sustainable?

I think that there are a lot of aspects of Israeli cities that are admirable. They also come with a lot of problems, some worse than in San Francisco. I spent most of my time in Rishon Lezziyon, but I also briefly visited Jerusalem, went to Haifa, and went a couple of times to Tel Aviv. I went by taxi, by car, by bus, by train, and by private transit “taxi” vans. I did not bike, but I did observe others biking and I have a few things to say about cycling in Israel. I also noticed a lot of things about cityscape and building design that I think are mostly admirable.

I’ll start with the city design. I didn’t see any single-family single-story homes in my stay. My mother’s family all live in apartments, even her rather wealthy relatives. There were some lower-density neighborhoods, but even there, the houses looked like they were attached duplexes, not the large-lot Eichlers uglifying Palo Alto. The other great thing about Israel is that literally nobody has a grassy yard. We don’t seem to have realized that California is a desert and should not be dotted with yards like in the ever-rainy Sweden. There is, however, still plenty of greenspace. Public parks are common (I found at least five within a ten minute walk) and most have plenty of grass. There are also a lot of fountains that I feel are a bit extravagant in a desert. Israel is big on desalinization, which is feasible but a lot more expensive than conservation and treating wastewater (read this blog post about drinking your own pee: http://www.citylab.com/weather/2014/06/why-californians-will-soon-be-drinking-their-own-pee/373014/).

One other cool thing about Israel is the prevalence of solar. Nearly every home and building has a solar hot water heater. This usually consists of a white tank on the roof that is attached to a flat-plate solar collector. Unfortunately, it looks like some of the newer buildings are forgoing solar. Keep in mind that Israel is very sunny and warm, so solar water heating is pretty much all that is needed. The water at my mother’s apartment takes a couple of minutes to warm up at some places, but it gets plenty hot. Speaking of hot, the weather is quite bad in summer. It only gets to be 85-100 degrees, but it is humid enough to feel a lot worse, and the low temperature at night is rarely below 70, at least for where I was staying. Despite that, a lot of people do not seem to use their air conditioners all that much and there are still always plenty of people outside. Stores, however, have no qualms about blasting the AC and leaving their doors wide open, to the dismay of me and whoever deals with their electric bills. 

Unfortunately, Israeli cities are lacking in a safe transportation infrastructure. Although cities are compact and mixed-use enough to warrant a pedestrian-friendly street layout, the space is just not there. Sidewalks are often narrow and bike lanes are nonexistent. Drivers are horrible-speeding, rude, honking. We saw a car crash into a scooter in Tel Aviv. I remember the crazy drivers from 15 years ago and it seems that the chorus hasn't changed much. Tel Aviv was full of traffic jams and the highways were often congested. There appeared to be a toll lane for a period on the highway but it was only used by buses and taxis while even while everyone else was stalled. Oh yeah, Israel seems to be a place for hitchhiker's-there were literally hitchhiking stops in the middle of the highway (or maybe they were just bus stops on the highway, which I also saw frequently).

Despite the car frenzy, public transit is somewhat decent. There was frequent bus service of all colors. Interestingly, the newer, fancier buses with wifi seemed to be empty while the old green buses were often quite full. There are also private vans (sheruts) that basically function as buses without set stops and for about the same fare. During Shabat (Friday afternoon through Saturday afternoon), the buses don't run and the sheruts pick up the slack (for a higher price!). Train service is also decent between cities but not fully comprehensive. The trains are definitely a bit on the older side and are smelly diesel trains. Haifa actually has started a BRT system called Metronit that looks and feels just like light rail. While a pleasant experience, it was still delayed due to lack of signal priority (mentioned in the Wiki). It has also been riddled by cost overages and at the end of the day, may not actually end up much cheaper than a light rail system. I think it is a good idea though, and if properly designed, can have most of the same benefits as light rail for half the cost.

The biggest issue with transportation is the road space. I see some complain about the lack of bike lanes or sidewalks in America, but this is heavily amplified in Israel. Where I was staying was a nice mixed-use neighborhood with a lot of apartments and shops. Unfortunately, sidewalks are often too narrow to handle foot traffic, much less the bicycles and electric bikes (very common!) that invaded due to the utter lack of bike lanes. Intersections are also an annoyance for pedestrians: just to get across a relatively small 4-lane road, one must wait for the signal, reach the median, and then wait another minute to actually cross. Maybe there is some reasoning behind the crosswalk timing but it seems more of a hindrance to walking. According to some studies (look them up if you want), most pedestrian accidents occur away from crosswalks, but this is likely due to the need to walk half a block, wait a minute, cross halfway, and then wait another minute before being able to cross, just to reach a park that was literally directly across from your house.

Don't even get me started about bikes. Tel Aviv actually has a bike share that seems fairly popular and bikes were fairly common in most places I visited. As I said though, there are no bike lanes and it doesn't appear to be getting better. Tel Aviv has a few bi-directional bike lanes and some bike paths through parks and along the beach. These are geared more towards leisure than towards commuting-the infrastructure is pretty nonexistent closer to shops and offices. Bi-directional bike lanes are also not particularly ideal on one side of a wide road-you may have to cross the road to reach the bike lane and then cross again to reach your destination. Rishon has more bike paths near new developments, but again, they're only on one side of the street and they aren't well connected. I hope that the US (and Israel for that matter) learn to do better.

Some other things I saw were a little disturbing as well. For one, there was a lot of trash around parks and in the street. There was also a lot of smoking, often with store owners lighting up right outside their door. Overall, it was a mixed bag, but I can't say that Israel is a sustainable country. For one, war is pretty nasty for the environment. But even forgetting Israel's treatment of Palestinians and other social issues, the pedestrian/cycling support is sorely lacking in otherwise nice and dense mixed-use developments.