Highway 2 (Israel)

The highway was built in several stages in the direction from Tel Aviv to the north. The construction of the first stage of the highway from Tel Aviv to Netanya was announced in August 1949 , work began in parallel from Tel Aviv and from Netanya in November 1949. By March 1950, more than half of the asphalt pavement was laid ^[1] , and in July 1950 the section between Tel Aviv and Netanya was already open for traffic ^{[2] [3]} .

The construction of a section from Netanya to Hadera was announced in January 1950 ^[4] , and a tender was opened in May 1951 ^[5] . However, the work was postponed for a significantly longer time.

In the process of designing the northern section of the highway, the last few kilometers before entering Haifa were intended to serve as a backup runway for the Air Force in case of war and the inability to use the Ramat David airbase, the only one in northern Israel. The highway in this section was built in a completely straight line, with a minimum difference in the heights of the beginning and end of the section, there were no barrier barriers on the dividing strip and on the curbs, and no power lines passed in the vicinity of the highway. Once in several years, the Air Force conducted nightly exercises to prepare the highway for an emergency, during which the highway was blocked by police, the road surface was carefully swept and several combat aircraft landed on the road ^[6] . At the end of the exercises, the planes took off, the ground equipment of the Air Force was withdrawn and the highway returned to its regular activities.

In 2000, due to the increased number of head-on collisions between vehicles traveling in opposite directions on the dividing strip of the section, a rope barrier of the original design was built, consisting of a cable stretched between shallow racks - if necessary, they could easily be pulled out of asphalt and the whole fence was folded over A couple of minutes. In 2009, the Air Force announced that they were no longer interested in maintaining a backup runway, as a result of which a permanent barrier fence was erected on the dividing strip and on the roadsides of the segment ^[7] .

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  Highway opening in 1950

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  View near the coast

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  In Netanya

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  Near Wingate Institute

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  Highway view in the morning from a bridge in Netanya