New plans are underway to create a subway that would connect Jerusalem with nearby suburbs, Natan Elnatan, Chairman of the National Planning and Construction Council, revealed for the first time last week.

He made the announcement at the Jerusalem Future Plans Conference, organized by the Nadlan Center in collaboration with the Jerusalem municipality.

“Soon they’ll start planning the metro for Jerusalem,” Elnatan said, echoing the name for Tel Aviv’s massive subway project launched last year. “We are talking about an underground line that would run inside Jerusalem and connect it to Beit Shemesh and Mevaseret Zion. This is still on the drafting table in the early stages of planning, and we haven’t really started talking about it publicly yet.”

The plans are being developed for after the completion of the capital’s light rail network and optimization of transportation options.

Officials at the conference said the city continues to plan for rapid growth in the future as the rise in Jerusalem home prices exponentially outstripped the national average last year, with recent data from the Central Bureau of Statistics indicating that home prices in Jerusalem continued to soar during 2025, even as other markets stagnated.

In the last 12 months for which it has data, from November 2024 to November 2025, prices have risen by 9.4% in Jerusalem while declining by some 2.9% in Tel Aviv and the center of the country. Prices rose 5.4% in the north, 1.2% in the south, and 0.5% in Haifa during that period, the CBS noted.

An “unprecedented ” 8,445 permits for new housing units were issued in 2025, with about half inside buildings undergoing urban renewal projects, the city said. In addition, 142,000 square meters of offices and campuses designated for high-tech received building permits and will be built in the coming years, alongside approximately 2 million square meters of commercial and office space currently under construction throughout Jerusalem.

“These apartments are intended for a [financially] strong population,” Lion commented. “I don’t know anyone who is financially weak who could buy an apartment in one of........

© The Times of Israel