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INVESTMENTS SINCE 1887 BOB MORIAN (313) 336-9200 1-800-365-9200 perky, executive yuppie with slicked-back hair leaves his gleaming house in the suburbs, waves goodbye to his family, and hops into his car to head to work. So far, so good. But soon, his Israeli dream turns into a night- mare. Caught in an endless stream of traffic, he starts to sweat; his hair is mussed; he is late for his meeting. He grabs his cellular phone and starts apolo- gizing. Once he arrives at his destination, he learns that oth- er important executives are sit- ting in traffic. "Darn," he mutters to his assistant. "And I was the one who supported putting this factory in Kiryat Gat." Thus opens the promotional film created by the Trans-Israel Highway Corporation. Presumably, once their planned highway crosses the country to link Rosh Pina with Beersheba, our yuppie hero will be able to saunter out of his house in Lower Galilee, jump onto a section of the 190-mile, multi-lane highway, and quick- ly reach his destination in time for his meeting. The Trans-Israel Highway, they proinise, will al- low Israel to spread out in spa- cious suburbs further north, further south and further east than today, and still work in greater Tel Aviv. The state company is taking one of the most important steps towards realizing this dream. The initial selection tender for the building of the first 60-mile section of the highway — stretch- ing approximately between Hadera in the north and Gedera in the south — will be published. The short list for the license is expected to be ready in May, with the final tender offered in June and the beginning of nego- tiations scheduled soon. Never before has there been an engineering investment on such a scale in Israel. The company estimates that building the first section of the road, including its eight to 10 in- terchanges, will cost $700 mil- lion, an amount the bidders will presumably earn back in tolls from the estimated 120,000 dai- ly vehicle trips (by 2010) that will take place on the road. Putting such a major enter- prise in private hands is complex. Picking the winning bidder will take the Trans-Israel Highway company through the end of 1996. The paving itself, there- fore, will only begin five years af- ter the government declared the road a national priority. But the company chairman, former chief of staff Moshe Levy, is convinced the company had no other way to plan the construction. And a private toll road, at least in the beginning, may be the only way to create the road at all. "We face a dilemma," he says. "If we were to plunge into the project without a tender it might not have been built. You can nev- er count on a state budget over the long term. One year it might be fine, but no one knows what will happen the next year. Some- one can suddenly tell you to wait and you get stuck." To save time, the company is already building one intersection for the highway, at Ben Shemen, not far from Ben Gurion Airport, and will begin soon the con- struction of a second one, at the Kessem interchange, next to Rosh Ha'ayin. At the same time, archaeological teams from the Antiquities Authority are comb- ing the length of the road, exca- vating to make sure the way is clear for the first section of the road. And other workers are moving-pipes, electric lines, and sewer tunnels out of the road's path. In the meantime, the compa- ny will work on getting the ap- proval of the National Planning Council for the northern and southern stretches of the road. At the company, the need for such a road is a given. Its officials happily provide numbers: In < 1972, there were 200,000 cars on the road in Israel; in 1992, there were 1.2 million; and by the year 2000, it is predicted there will be 2 million. The trend is likely to further accelerate. Today, the cit- izen-to-car ratio in Israel is only half of Europe's and a third of the United States. The high vehicle density on ex- isting roads, the company says, is the cause of many accidents; decreasing congestion by spread- ing out the population will help. Hence, the Trans-Israel High- way. The road, they say, will save the economy time, fuel, spare parts and work hours as well as tens of millions of com- muting hours. The road was conceived well before the the planning of the Is- rael Defense Forces's withdraw- al from Palestinian towns like Tulkarm and Kalkilya, which the Trans-Israel Highway will skirt. Will a vital artery's location so close to the Palestinian Authori- ty constitute a security risk? Mr. Levy dismisses such a concept.