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If you peer down the track and squint your eyes just so, you can almost see the light rail heading your way. In recent months, builders of Jerusalem's electric trolley transit system have made huge leaps towards getting it operational, and they boast that they are approaching the final stretch. According to city planners, over 92 percent of the track has been laid, with only parts of Jaffa Road, Pisgat Zeev and the area around the Central Bus Station remaining.

On busy Jaffa Road, where work on the rail has been arguably been most public, disruptive and controversial, the general public can now begin to see what the completed midrechov, or pedestrian mall, will look like. One side of the formerly traffic-filled thoroughfare has been completed, and intensive work has now begun on the other side of the street.

And the first trial run, of actual trolleys gliding across three kilometers of actual Jerusalem track, was completed without a hitch last week. Testing is set to continue in the coming weeks, which will involve a total of 28 kilometers of track, 46 trains, 24 stations and approximately 1000 high-tech sensor nodes. Thousands of plants, trees and lamps will be installed during this phase of the work as well.

While the original work began with tension between the city and local businesses along the road (proprietors suddenly saw traffic in front of their stores drop), planners believe the end result will be for the better and that locals are finally coming around to see it their way.

"I think people definitely are happy there is a midrechov," Yehoshua Birotker, who heads Jerusalem's transportation and modeling pision, tells GoJerusalem.com. "There isn't even a train yet, but you can already see people are out," he adds, pointing to the nearby uber-popular and always packed Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall as evidence that the city center thrives despite the upheaval.

Indeed, Birotker says closing off the area to vehicular traffic is part of the drive to make Jerusalem's downtown into a world-class model of urban space, where people move about in a manner that is efficient, quiet and environmentally friendly. A key element to that vision is the light rail, which he says will transform the way Jerusalemites get around, and many other aspects of their lives.

"You will be able to get places faster and easier," he said. "Not just to the center but surrounding areas, with transfers to buses. We need to encourage more people to leave the car and switch to transit. There will be less pollution. The air will be better in Jerusalem."

While most of the track is laid and testing is getting under way, it will be a year or so until you can hop aboard any of the trains and get from Pisgat Zeev to Mount Herzl to the city center and Old City, or glide across the Bridge of Strings. An ongoing dispute between the CityPass consortium building the train and the government has thrown the opening date into the air, but after years of waiting, it's finally seeming like it's not too far off.