Tel Aviv Light Rail

The Tel Aviv Light Rail, also known as Dankal is a mass transit system for Gush Dan, the Tel Aviv metropolitan area in central Israel. The system will include different modes of mass transit, including rapid transit (metro), light rail transit (LRT), and bus rapid transit (BRT). Overseen by NTA Metropolitan Mass Transit System Ltd., a government agency, the project will complement the intercity and suburban rail network operated by Israel Railways.

As of 2023, two LRT lines are under construction and one available to the public. Work on the Red Line, the first in the project, started on September 21, 2011, following years of preparatory works, and was opened on August 18, 2023, after numerous delays. Construction of the Purple Line started in December 2018; work on the Green Line began in January 2019.

The network was originally planned to be called "MetroTLV" but was changed to "Dankal". The name comes from the metropolitan area of Tel Aviv, Gush Dan, and "light" ("kal", Hebrew: קל).

The first proposals for a tramway in the area were made by the Lebanese engineer George Franjieh in November 1892, about nine weeks after the inauguration of the Jaffa–Jerusalem railway. The plan called for a main line between southern and northeastern Jaffa, with spurs to the harbor and the eastern orchards. The plan was considered uneconomical and was shelved. A later plan called for a light railway from Jaffa to the nearby towns of Rishon LeZion, Petah Tikva and Wilhelma.

A Decauville light railway was built in Jaffa and Tel Aviv in World War I, connecting the port with the Yarkon River. It was used for about a decade after the war, and dismantled at a later date.

A light rail line, with a route similar to the current Red Line, was planned in 1921 by Pinhas Rutenberg. An attempt to build the line in 1924-5 was unsuccessful.

A subway system was first planned in the mid-1960s but a station at the Shalom Meir Tower was all that was completed of the project, with no rails laid.

In 2000, the plan for a subway was changed to one for light rail, and more plausible plans for a mass transit system in Tel Aviv were unveiled. After the first Red Line spanning 22 kilometres (14 mi) was approved, excavation began in late 2009, with construction of the underground stations starting in August 2015. The Red Line became operational on August 18, 2023.