After three decades of attempts to advance structural reform in public transportation, the Public Transportation Authorities (Metropolitan Authorities and National Authority) Bill, 5786–2026 brings a profound change to the table: the management of public transportation is moving away from a centralized governmental model and advancing toward a regional, professional model connected to the ground. The reform establishes metropolitan authorities in Gush Dan (Tel Aviv metropolis), Jerusalem, and Haifa, and subsequently in Beersheba as well, granting them tangible powers for planning, management, enforcement, and development of public transportation in the urban-regional space.

Israel is among the most centralized countries in the world, and the most centralized among OECD countries according to accepted decentralization indices. Local government in Israel, despite constituting an elected governmental tier directly responsible for residents’ quality of life, operates within a limited sphere of authority and under heavy governmental regulation. The result is a system wherein numerous decisions touching upon the citizen’s daily life—services, infrastructure, planning, transportation, and living space management—are made far from the place where they are implemented.

Decentralization, in its basic sense, seeks to alter this starting point: transferring responsibility, authority, and execution capabilities from the central government to government tiers closer to the ground. This is not merely an administrative move of “division of labor,” but a shift in the conception of governance: transitioning from a state that manages directly or via micro-management, to a state that defines goals, sets standards, supervises, and corrects, while routine management and adaptation to residents’ needs are executed closer to the living space itself.

The Public Transportation Authorities (Metropolitan Authorities and National Authority) Bill, 5786–2026 is a significant case study for such a move. Public transportation is a domain where the failure of centralization is particularly prominent: service is provided on the ground, influenced by commuting patterns, employment centers, urban density, parking, local infrastructure, and residents’ preferences, yet for years it was managed primarily from above, out of a central government ministry. The Bill seeks to change this via establishing metropolitan authorities that will receive tangible powers for planning, management, licensing, enforcement, and development of public transportation in the metropolitan space.

What Does the Bill Determine?

The Bill accomplishes two central things: it establishes metropolitan authorities for public transportation, and anchors alongside them the status of the National Public Transportation Authority.

The metropolitan authorities are designed to be the body responsible for managing public transportation within the metropolitan area. In the first phase, the law establishes the authorities for Gush Dan, Jerusalem, and Haifa, and enables establishing additional metropolitan authorities by decree going forward. Regarding each authority, the primary city, the included local authorities, the geographical area under its responsibility, the voting power of council members, and the special majority required for certain matters are determined.

The metropolitan authority’s powers are broad: it sets public transportation policy and parking policy in the metropolis; manages and supervises public transportation activity; issues licenses to operate bus and taxi service lines; sets traffic arrangements; manages traffic; enforces traffic offenses and violations in corridors under its responsibility; collects data and makes it accessible to the public; and initiates, plans, establishes, operates, and maintains public transportation infrastructure. The implication is that the metropolitan authority is not merely a coordination forum among authorities, but a statutory body possessing execution, planning, and enforcement powers.

Concurrently, the proposal anchors the National Public Transportation Authority as the state body responsible for setting policy, operating methods, and benchmarks for planning and operating public transportation; supervising the activity of metropolitan authorities; and managing public transportation not under their responsibility. Thereby the law does not abolish state responsibility, but alters its form: the state remains responsible for national policy, standards, supervision, and the inter-metropolitan system, while the metropolitan authority receives managerial and executive responsibility in the space where transportation actually operates.

Why Is This a Decentralizing Reform?

The decentralizing innovation in the Bill lies not merely in establishing a new body, but in shifting the focus of decision-making. Instead of the Ministry of Transport making most decisions concerning public transportation operation in each metropolis, the law transfers a significant portion of responsibility to a regional body wherein local authority mayors or authority CEOs sit. Thereby it recognizes that local government possesses knowledge, responsibility, and democratic legitimacy regarding residents’ needs, yet also that public transportation cannot be managed at the level of the individual authority.

This is decentralization practically “via regionality”: creating a metropolitan-regional tier connecting local authorities and building a joint mechanism around them. Public transportation is precisely the sort of domain where direct decentralization to the individual local authority is liable to miss the problem: lines, public transport lanes (PTLs), terminals, frequencies, parking lots, and employment centers do not stop at municipal borders. Therefore, the reform does not suffice with strengthening the municipality, but generates a regional framework enabling local authorities to jointly manage the shared transportation space.

In this sense, the proposal embodies a model of “supervised decentralization”: it transfers tangible powers from the state to a body closer to the ground, yet retains strategic responsibility, benchmarks, budgeting, supervision, and intervention capacity in case of deviation or failure in the state’s hands. This is not full decentralization or broad local autonomy, but a first and significant step in transitioning from an executing state to a directing, supervising, and correcting state.

Flexible Regionality: Why Specifically a Metropolis?

Regionality is an approach based on cooperation among local authorities, aiming to address supra-local needs and challenges while relying on the assets and unique characteristics of a defined space, and improving residents’ quality of life via economies of scale and joint service provision. This is fundamentally the conception that local authorities act together within a joint framework to address problems crossing urban borders. It rests upon the understanding that residents’ living space—work, studies, services, and movement—is not limited to local authority borders, and hence solutions must likewise be built on a broader scale. Flexible regionality is a targeted application of this idea: instead of establishing a permanent regional governance layer for all domains, a regional framework is built according to function, need, and actual movement, rather than a general administrative map.

The Bill is an almost natural application of this logic. It establishes no general, permanent regional governance layer for all domains of life, but a dedicated metropolitan body around a distinct regional problem. This is precisely the logic of flexible regionality: not a new “district” or broad regime reform, but a targeted, functional, and professional regional mechanism built around a domain where individual local action does not suffice.

The Inherent Tension: Local Interest Versus Regional Vision

Every regional model bears within it inherent tension: an elected mayor is chosen to represent their residents, not all residents of the metropolis. They are measured by local achievements, parking availability in their city, congestion on their streets, residents’ objections, and the ability to bring resources to their authority. Conversely, good public transportation occasionally requires decisions serving the entire metropolis even if generating a local price: a public transport lane at the expense of parking, a transportation terminal in a specific authority’s territory, altering lines or connectivity among authorities.

The Bill addresses this tension via several mechanisms. First, it creates a regional council wherein local authorities are represented, yet their voting power is unequal, weighted instead by population and a transportation component. Second, it establishes a professional tier—authority manager, legal advisor, and internal auditor—meant to ensure execution capacity and proper administration. Third, it retains a regulatory role for the National Authority: setting benchmarks, approving plans, supervision, and correction capacity. Fourth, it enables setting a special majority for sensitive decisions, particularly when concern obtains that a strong primary city will dominate metropolitan decisions alone. In Gush Dan, for example, a special majority of 60% is set for certain decisions.

Summary

The Bill is not merely a transportation reform. It is an institutional move demonstrating how Israeli centralization can be cautiously dismantled: transferring tangible powers from the government to a space closer to the ground; doing so not via each authority separately, but via a regional institution fitting the problem’s character; and retaining an important state role of policy, standards, budgeting, supervision, and correction capacity.

Should the reform be correctly implemented, it could become a first case study of a new regionality in Israel: stronger local government, a more strategic state, and a regional institution connecting local knowledge, metropolitan vision, and joint execution capacity.