Works change Attica
Major construction work being carried out on peripheral highways and interchanges in Attica is to be completed in stages from this April to the end of 2003 and will change the face of the capital, Prime Minister Costas Simitis said yesterday. Simitis visited the site of a major interchange of Kifissias Avenue with the Attiki Odos, which is being built near the Hellenic Telecommunications Organization (OTE). «We see that the work is moving ahead according to the timetable and will be completed in 2002, 2003 and others by the Athens 2004 Olympics,» Simitis said. «Athens is changing, Attica is changing, Greece is changing,» he said. «I want to call on all citizens, those who are obstructed by these works, to be patient and to contribute. Because this collective effort aims for a better city and a better country in the coming decades,» Simitis said. He added that the works would «make Athens a city that respects its citizens more.» The Kifissias interchange is to be completed by the end of this year and will link the Attiki Odos and suburban railway with Kifissias Avenue. The Attiki Odos highway and suburban railway will run 13 meters below the current level of Kifissias Avenue. Kifissias Avenue will dip three meters below ground level, in a patch of road that will be completed at the end of this April. The third part of the interchange is the cyclical bit that has already been completed, at the current level of Kifissias Avenue. Simitis also visited another interchange, known as Doukissis Plakentias, which is probably the most important such intersection in the Attica basin. When completed it will connect the Hymettos ring road, the highway linking Elefsina with Stavros and the airport at Spata, the Athens Metro, the suburban railway and a bus transit terminus. This means that all of Attica’s major transport routes will pass through this intersection when it is completed at the end of 2003. This December, the Elefsina-Aegaleo part of the highway is to be completed, along with the part linking Kymis and Kifissias avenues, and Pentelis Avenue with the Gerakas region. In April, the Pallini-Glyka Nera section will be opened to traffic. Comprising about 20 intellectuals from various fields of expertise, the commission is tasked with the difficult and sensitive duty of confronting Serbs with the atrocities of the past decade and for which they have mostly been blamed.
