Cross-Israel Highway       The Cross-Israel Highway, in the Ramot Menashe section, passes in a region with very high landscape sensitivity. The highway's route crosses a ridge of soft hills, some of them covered with Tabor Oaks and others with cornfields. The highway's route, 18 km long, crosses many streams some of which are Nature Reserves. The landscape design started at the conceptual planning stage and included, evaluation of the topography, landscape analysis, determination of the horizontal and vertical route of the highway, evaluation of the various alternatives, determination of the location and length of bridges and tunnels and solutions for minimizing and rehabilitating unavoidable damages. The landscape rehabilitation work is carried out in coordination with the highway engineers, bridge engineers, architect and the tunnel engineer. The following landscape design principles were established; (a) The bridge system and their connection to the natural soil will be built as an aqueduct in the landscape; (b) In sections where the highway is recessed, the excavation will be terraced in soft wavy lines following the topography of the hills in the area. The width and height of the terraces will vary and form a natural looking landscape; (c) The flora used for rehabilitation will reflect the landscape typical to each of the areas where the highway passes; (d) The plants selected for rehabilitation are: stream plants in the area of streams, oak trees in the hills of the park's forest, vines in landscape areas of vineyards and corn in the cornfields area. The initiator of the project: The Cross Israel Highway Company