Greece steps up in public transport
After the success of Olympics, Greek
national government announced further
extensions of Athens’ metro and the
beginning of works for Thessaloniki’s metro.
Athens’ metro is a 135 km network serving
45 stations, recently extended thanks to
the games, which will grow by 23
kilometers - 12 stations by 2009 and by 20,8
more kilometers (16 more stations) by 2012.
Government also announced on November
1st various measures to improve public
transport and mobility in the metropolitan
area:
- creating a €1 integrated ticket valid for
90 minutes on all networks and €0,70
ticket valid for 90 minutes on bus,
trolley-bus and tram networks,
- implementing traffic light priority for
the tramway,
- increasing the bus fleet size by 25%
reaching 2,500 vehicles,
- re-introducing 4,000 paying car places
in city center and 2,000 for motorcycles.
Thessaloniki’s metro first line consists
in a 9.5 kilometer line serving 14 stations.
The cost of this project is about €1bn.
This long-term work started 10 years
ago and has been postponed in 2003.
The works should start in July 2005 and
are expected to last six years.
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Updated : December 9, 2004
