Triple Purim celebrations in Jerusalem: Thousands who left the ultra-Orthodox cities to celebrate Purim in the capital created huge, unimaginable traffic jams on the roads leading there.
Since noon, drivers and passengers have been reporting unusual traffic congestion on the main roads leading up to the Holy City - and trips that were supposed to take about an hour are now taking three hours. One driver said: "The roads are just crazy busy, anyone who doesn't have to, it's better to stay home.".
Particularly unusual traffic jams were recorded at the exit from Modi'in Illit to the Shilat junction, when hundreds of packed buses and private vehicles, with families trying to leave the city for Purim celebrations in Jerusalem, were stuck in heavy traffic jams.
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Haredi strategist Yitzhak Feldman, a resident of Modi'in Elite, described the chaos: "I tried to leave the city with the children towards Jerusalem. We stood for over an hour, the traffic jams still inside the city itself. We didn't even manage to reach the exit from the city.".
Finally, he was forced to give up on the trip to Jerusalem: "We saw sad scenes on the side of the road. Entire families standing in 32-degree heat, with costumes, with food deliveries, with a lot of sadness and despair in their eyes. Babies are crying, and no one cares about any of this.
""At a certain point we found a loophole that allowed us to escape and we fled back home. There are those who are still stuck and have one dream - to succeed in escaping.".
The transportation problem weighs heavily on Modiin Ilit, a city of almost 100,000 residents, all year round, but during the holidays, chaos takes over the entire city.
Traffic jams inside Modi'in Elite. Photo: Courtesy of the photographer
The reason: One narrow exit leads from the city to Route 446 to the Shilat junction and to Route 443 - the main route leading to Jerusalem and the center. Although there is a possibility of opening another exit from the city and paving a bypass road to the Maccabim checkpoint on Route 433, this is not being done due to petitions from green organizations, which protect the military in the area.
Purim celebrations in Jerusalem are expected to continue until late at night. According to estimates, traffic congestion will continue to be significant until the holiday is over.
A senior official at the National Public Transportation Authority told Haredim 10 even before the holiday that he recommends that the traveling public from across the country avoid traveling to Jerusalem as much as possible during the upcoming Purim holiday, for fear of particularly heavy traffic congestion, which will cause widespread disruptions to the public transportation system within Jerusalem and on the roads leading to it.
“We don’t want to see again the sights of entire families getting off the bus and walking with their children towards the city of Jerusalem,” says the official at the National Public Transportation Authority. “In past years, there have been many cases of empty buses standing in traffic jams for hours and unable to reach the stations and pick up passengers.”.
He added: “We are prepared to transport all passengers, but the heavy traffic loads expected this year will mean that we will not be able to reach the stations.”.
