Olympic legacy
Save for some badly designed or draconian measures, most of the Olympic arrangements should remain in place after the curtain has fallen on the Games. If we include the measures that were supposed to be implemented in view of the Games but were not due to poor planning or a habitual disregard for the people, then the inhabitants of Athens get a picture of what they should demand of their municipalities, fragmented prefectures and, of course, the government. At the end of the day, if there is any legacy to be left to us from the Games (apart from mammoth debt), it is not so much the major road and public transport projects as a picture of organization, order and tidiness. Those who live near the Olympic sites have not seen their neighborhoods so clean for years. On a personal level, the first to benefit from the Games are those who will be forced to abandon their cars for public transport. But this will become permanent only when Athenians learn to trust the capital’s new and older means of transportation… Besides, it will take a great deal of effort before the new roads and means of transport can be linked with the older transport systems and those neglected routes that do not happen to cross the districts involved in the Olympic feast. If the effort is kept up after the autumn, then we can talk about an Olympic accomplishment.
