Calling the Minister of Transport (and Ceremonies)
What do France, Georgia, India, Mexico, Morocco, and Sri Lanka have in common? Unique cuisine? Yes. Beaches? Indeed. Also, our dear Minister of Transport (and unofficial Minister of Official Ceremonies) recently visited them. Cognizant of her untiring efforts to benefit all Israelis, I am sure that mobility here will improve as a result of these trips. And if in the course of these travels she managed to take a breather from the heaviness which envelopes us all, even better – I have no problem with whoever can relax amid the ongoing stress.
Personally, I find it difficult to leave Israel now, but I needed a break. For a Jerusalemite like me, Tel Aviv is like another country, and so I chose it as my destination. I reserved a hotel, made plans, and had to decide how to get there. They say the train is excellent – within half an hour, the excited traveler from the Holy City will arrive at the City Which Never Sleeps.
But one has to reach the train station. By bus. for those not familiar with that mode of transport, allow me to share a recent experience. A travel app informed me that a car required 17 minutes for my designated journey, walking would take one hour and 17 minutes, and a bus would bring me from here to there in 36 minutes. They became 81.
You may think: that is long, but sitting comfortably in air-conditioning, it is not the end of the world. However, the aircon didn’t work well and many did not sit, certainly not comfortably. When I turned sixty, my mother told me that I no longer have to offer my seat to those who appear to need it more. Years have passed and I try to obey her, but it is not always possible – passengers stare at a screen or into space, as though not realizing that the woman standing beside them is about to give birth. Did you ever notice the quarrelsome old lady who reproaches young passengers and makes them stand up? That’s me.
I was fortunate to sit the whole way, eighty-one minutes, like a full-length film. The man standing beside me complained into a phone about his financial problems. Is that why he cannot afford hygiene, as I discovered while he held a grip directly above me? For more than an hour I was enveloped in the odor of sweat, which increased as his volume and distress grew.
But I digress. There are two trains per hour. Getting to a stop and waiting for a bus takes me about ten minutes. Twenty something minutes to the station, add fifteen minutes safety margin in case traffic is held up, ten minutes on escalators into the belly of the station. There went an hour, in order to enjoy the magic ride which will transport me speedily from the holiest of cities to the richest among them. And then another bus, in Tel Aviv.
I called a taxi; it took less than an hour. Luckily, I can afford it and can choose to travel at convenient times. But whoever lacks resources and/or flexibility, has no choice but to spend hours on the roads, and must then function normally after an experience like mine, or worse. Who cares what she underwent on her way to work, or how he traveled home, to his family?
Therefore, in order to further improve your efforts on our behalf, may I respectfully suggest to you, Honorable Minister, that in the limited time remaining to you between vital study trips abroad and organizing essential ceremonies here in Israel, you should travel between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, just once, preferably at peak hours, during summer. Without an entourage and with no photographers. Just you and your yellow public transport card, like so many of your subjects.