Athens traffic woes grow as cabbies walk off the job
Athens taxi drivers joined a nationwide cabbies’ strike on Tuesday morning and will be off the clock for 48 hours and possibly longer if a contentious tax reform bill delays being voted in Parliament until Thursday.
The taxi strike in Athens, which comes after drivers in other parts of the country began a four-day walk-off on Monday, is expected to put a strain on public transport and increase the turnout of cars on the city’s streets, making life even harder for commuters and residents in the Greek capital during a week of successive traffic nightmares.
Official restrictions on traffic in downtown Athens begin on Wednesday during marches commemorating the 2008 killing of 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos by an off-duty police officer in the central district of Exarchia.
On Thursday, the Greek police is mounting a major security operation that includes street closures and parking bans for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Athens.
In the meantime, various marches are planned by freelancers to protest measures included in the tax bill targeting evasion among self-employed professionals, which is also what prompted the taxi strike.
The first of these is taking place on Tuesday outside Parliament on Syntagma Square, starting at 1 p.m.
Similar protests are being planned in Thessaloniki and other parts of the country too.
