Environment
Can Tel Aviv's Iconic Trees and Its New Light Rail Coexist?
Construction of a new light-rail system could uproot trees that activists say help define the Israeli city.
Israel is in the midst of an ambitious mass-transit project, a new light-rail network serving the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, where 44 percent of Israelis live. The system is expected to provide half a million trips a day and save hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon emissions annually.
But the project has drawn the ire of environmentalists, who say it threatens a precious resource: Tel Aviv’s towering, glossy-leafed ficus trees. Planted decades ago along the city’s wide boulevards, these trees are an iconic part of the streetscape, central to the city’s early identity as a European-style settlement in the Middle East.