Municipal bulletins show enabling works expanding through the city center while designers refine plans for a 2-km underground section beneath its historic core
Jerusalem has advanced construction activity on its 31-km Blue Line light rail corridor, issuing early December municipal notices confirming continued utility and surface-infrastructure work along King George Street -- the alignment's most constrained segment and the planned site of a 2-km tunnel extension beneath the central commercial core.
The municipality said in a December construction notice posted on its official website, a Hebrew-language bulletin that is region-restricted for users outside Israel, that "the Jerusalem Municipality and Eden Company have begun infrastructure work along King George Street as part of the Blue Line project," confirming that enabling work is active along one of the city's busiest commercial corridors.
The notice outlines staged road adjustments and utility shifts required to clear the route for guideway installation and future underground-work staging.
The Blue Line is being delivered as a public-private partnership under a 2023 concession awarded to the consortium of Israeli firms Danya Cebus and Dan Transportation, and Spain-based contractor COMSA, as reported by The Jerusalem Post.
Municipal planning documents reviewed by ENR describe the line as "[connecting] the Ramot neighborhood in the north with Gilo in the south, passing through the city center." The partnership covers about 31 km across the Blue axis and its Azure and Purple connector lines, with the main Gilo-to-Ramot trunk measuring roughly 20 km.
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Jerusalem's city center encompasses the Mahane Yehuda Market district -- one of its primary commercial hubs -- and the Jaffa Street axis before the alignment continues south toward Gilo along major approach arterials. Government and finance-sector documents continue to cite an estimated cost of about $2.8 billion for the partnership project. Officials have not published a revised figure reflecting current market conditions.
The central segment presents the project's most demanding civil-works conditions. The alignment must pass beneath King George Street, the Ben Yehuda pedestrian zone and the Red Line's Jaffa Street corridor -- areas with narrow rights-of-way, high pedestrian volumes and existing transit operations.
Local reporting on city project materials notes that "the plan calls for a 2-km underground tunnel to be built beneath the city center, including several underground stations," to preserve surface mobility and avoid conflicts with Red Line rail service. Technical papers by GeoConsult describing the 'Blue Line Underground Section' support the 2-km length and multiple underground stations.
SYSTRA prepared preliminary design for the line in collaboration with local partners, establishing the foundational alignment and station concepts. GeoConsult reports conducting underground and geotechnical studies for the midtown segment.
The municipality has not released tunneling-method documentation, construction sequencing or contract-level disclosures identifying the firms that will execute excavation and station-box construction. Officials have also not yet provided a projected start date for tunneling activities.
Jerusalem lies atop Cretaceous limestone and dolomite formations of the Judean Group, with interbedded chalk and marl that vary in strength and fracture behavior, according to the Geological Survey of Israel and regional engineering-geology studies.
These strata can contain karstic voids, jointed blocks and perched groundwater -- conditions that complicate deep excavation and may require specialized support systems.
The city's ridge-and-valley topography concentrates development along narrow spines, leaving steep slopes and limited overburden in the center.
Dense archaeological deposits layered beneath the surface add further constraints. Together, these factors help explain engineers' decision to route the Blue Line's most constrained segment underground rather than widen or regrade surface corridors.
Suburban stops such as Ramot to the north sit on elongated ridges with elevations of approximately 693 and 850 m, reflecting the hilly, ridge-and-valley terrain on which expansion suburbs are built.
The Jerusalem Light Rail Systemwide Design Criteria establish the geometric, structural and systems parameters governing the tunnel. The design criteria allow mainline gradients of up to about 7% on plain line -- rising to 9% in exceptional cases -- and permit horizontal curve radii as tight as 25 m in highly constrained segments. Local elevation changes and limited rights-of-way shape these parameters.
The criteria also define the structural envelope for the tunnel, including clearance for vehicle sway, the 750V DC overhead contact system and required emergency-walkway space, all of which determine tunnel diameter and station-box geometry.
Noise and vibration thresholds may require resilient trackforms through sections of the commercial spine to protect sensitive buildings and historic structures.
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Municipal materials emphasize that a tunnel is necessary because central corridors cannot simultaneously support an at-grade guideway, heavy pedestrian flows and dense utility networks. After construction, portions of King George Street are planned to transition toward transit-priority and pedestrian-focused use.
Officials continue to reference a phased rollout, with the segment between the stop at Gilo and the city center expected to begin service later this decade with full Blue Line operations planned by 2030, consistent with partnership documentation outlining staged activation beginning in 2028.
More bulletins are expected as utility relocation, excavation staging and station-area preparation continue along the approaches to the tunnel zone.