Attica Metro’s race against time gets tight
Bad planning means that Attiko Metro, the company in charge of building the Athens metro line, is in a race against time to meet needs that were known from the outset. And according to sources close to the construction, the extension from Ethniki Amyna to Stavros will have to cease operations for two to three months so that three stations, Holargos, Nomismatokopeio (the National Mint) and Aghia Paraskevi can be built. Fast track to 2004 Contractors will almost certainly be hard pushed to complete the metro extensions to the stations of Aghios Antonios, Peristeri, Doukissis Plakentias (between Aghia Paraskevi and Stavros) and Ilioupolis by June 2004, just a few days before the Olympic Games’ opening ceremonies. In order to meet the deadlines, the extension from Ethniki Amyna to Doukissis Plakentias will not include construction of the three stations on the way, Holargos, Nomismatokopeio and Aghia Paraskevi, which are expected to begin operating two years after the Olympic Games, in June 2006, along with the Aghios Antonios and Thivon stations which will serve the western parts of the city. But Attiko Metro, the company which oversees the entire project, has shown signs of public sector inflexibility with the result that many decisions have been delayed, at the project’s expense. Complaints on this score have been heard from many of the firm’s executives. To a question by Kathimerini, the reply was that «we may have constructed the first section of the metro but have not learned from it.» As a result, Attiko Metro’s new president and managing consultant, Yiannis Chryssikopoulos, a former general secretary of public works, will have to battle attitudes as well as engage in a race against time. In 1996-7, when the question was first raised of extending the metro to Stavros as part of a network – including Attiki Odos and the suburban light railway – to serve the new airport at Spata, many raised budgetary objections which rendered the extension impossible. Until the final decisions were made on what extensions needed to be constructed for the Olympic Games, there was the usual shilly-shallying over several options: an extension proposed from Panormou to Paradeisos Amarousiou, a possible extension to Stavros and Peristeri, and whether the tramway would be below or above ground level. Existing stations lack parking space, meaning that not only have living standards dropped in the areas served by the metro but that significant amounts of possible revenue have also been lost, since people, knowing full well they will not find a parking space, simply avoid using the metro. This lack of parking provision is true of the extensions as well, as none of the stations provide car parks in order to facilitate access to the stations.
