City Notes: 200,000 visit nat’l parks in a single day

‘Human wave’ protests Betzet resort plan; Two 16 year-olds arrested for hate graffiti in Safed; TA inaugurates Israel’s first bicycle traffic light.

Some 200,000 people visited nature reserves and national parks last Saturday alone, according to the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. Roughly 65,000 visited reserves and parks with entrance fees and another estimated 130,000 visited free sites. INPA official Uzi Barzilai said that the numbers represented an increase from last year.

“Since the beginning of the holiday, more than half a million visitors came to reserves and parks. I expect that through the remainder of the holiday we’ll see more and more people coming out to hike in the reserves and parks – including the religious public.”

More than 1,000 people took part in a demonstration this week against the construction of a beach resort and shopping center in Betzet. The participants formed a kilometer-long “human wave” along the shore. While adults were encouraged to sign a petition against the construction, performances and activities took place for children.

Organizers claimed that construction on the coastline would harm valuable open spaces by fragmenting access to the beach and would cause environmental damage with noise, light, air and water pollution.

“The beach must be preserved without construction for the sake of nature and the valuable landscape,” a statement said.

Two 16-year-olds were arrested last week on suspicion that they spray-painted graffiti reading “Death to Jews” on four synagogues and a car in Safed earlier the same day. During a police interrogation, the two admitted to spray-painting the graffiti and claimed that it was in response to the torching of a mosque in the Galilee village of Tuba Zanghariya the week before.

Israel’s first bicycle traffic light was installed last week across from the Opera Tower in Tel Aviv, near the intersection of Allenby Road. The move comes following the construction of a new bicycle lane stretching the length of the city’s Herbert Samuel Promenade. The unorthodox traffic light was installed with the aim of allowing pedestrians to safely cross the promenade to Hayarkon Street. Additional bicycle traffic lights are planned along the bicycle path.

At the inauguration of the new traffic light, Tel Aviv-Jaffa Mayor Ron Huldai called the light “another reflection of the large investment the city is making in the creation of infrastructure to encourage cycling, constituting an alternative to private cars. Bicycle paths have become a part of the public infrastructure that serves all of the city’s residents.”

The Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality has been building more than 110 kilometers of bicycle paths throughout the city in the past decade. Last Friday, the city hosted a cycling event that circled from the north of the city through Jaffa and back, drawing an estimated 10,000 participants.