Route 333 (Israel)
Highway 333, also known as Ben-Gurion Boulevard, is a highway in West Jerusalem. It is the main entrance to the city through Givat Shaul. In the past, the road was part of Highway 1 until the opening of Yitzhak Shamir Road and the diverting of Highway 1 onto it. However, it is often colloquially still referred to as part of the Jerusalem–Tel Aviv Route.
History
The road, named for Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, was originally constructed as part of the Jerusalem–Tel Aviv line, also known as Highway 1, which is based on the ancient road between Jaffa and Jerusalem via Ramla, Latrun, Sha'ar HaGai, and Abu Ghosh. The section that belongs to Route 333 today is between the Sha'ar Morai interchange and the entrance to Jerusalem through Ginot Sakharov Junction.In 2007, Yitzhak Shamir Road was paved as a direct road between Motza and and a continuation of Highway 1 towards Ma'ale Adumim and on the. As a result, the Ben-Gurion Boulevard was no longer officially considered part of the redrawn route of Highway 1.
Work began in March 2017 to upgrade the Ganot Sakharov Junction to an interchange, and in 2021, it was opened to traffic. Concurrently, work was carried out at the Moriah Gate Interchange that rearranged traffic, so that the left lanes are those that point to the route to Emeq HaArazim, and that the right lanes point to Highway 333. The public transportation lane, established in the 2010s, remained as the left lane on the route of Ben-Gurion Boulevard. After the opening of the Ginot Sakharov interchange, Ben-Gurion Boulevard was marked for the first time as Route 333.