No.13                                                   September 1992

SUMMARY

Road Infrastructure in Israel and Economic Efficiency

Benjamin Ilan

Low spending has deprived Israel of an adequate network of inter-city roads. Many are single lane, paved along the course of ancient paths, and hopelessly congested. Newer roads lack adequate capacity and fail to meet high safety standards. Others are badly worn, poorly marked, and have almost no illumination.

In view of the enormous backlog, current levels of road construction work are too little, too late. Much more is needed to catch up with the standards of other Western countries. Consequently the gap between road use in Israel, which doubled in the last decade, and road facilities, continues to widen. 

In fact, Israel's bad roads have effectively converted a small and compact country into a segmented one in which distances, as measured in travel times, are much longer than they are in geographical fact.

Israeli taxpayers have invested large sums of money in government programs to promote regional development, such as capital grants, tax concessions, and housing subsidies, with very poor results. A more cost effective approach to regional development and population dispersal would take the form of a good nationwide road system. Shifting settlement incentives to road construction would be consistent with a free market approach to economic development, in which location decisions would not be hindered by considerations of extreme travel time and costs. Good roads would also facilitate the efficient absorption and settlement of new immigrants. Finally, good roads would reduce traffic fatalities and personal injuries.