The Olympics is the focal point for much of the current wave of infrastructural development, but the benefits will be felt for generations
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Athens 2004 Olympic Games is an important catalyst for infrastructural
development in Greece, not only in terms of the facilities required
to host them but also the new roads and transport services required
to cope with the millions of expected visitors.
In particular, a series of ambitious highway schemes will eventually
connect Greece with its neighbours, boosting regional integration and
strengthening communications between southeastern Europe and the rest
of the continent.
The Egnatia Highway, stretching 680km from Igoumenitsa on Greece’s
Ionian coast to the frontier with Turkey, is the first motorway to cut
across the country from east to west. The highway is named after Roman
pro-consul Gaius Ignatius, who was the first to conceive and build a
road from the Ionian Sea to Turkey, which enabled Roman commerce to
spread further east.
Funded jointly by the European Union and Greek government, this huge
project will have a massive impact on the lives of the people of northern
Greece; slashing travel times and opening up new possibilities for tourists
and commerce. The journey from the port of Igoumenitsa to the Turkish
border, for example, will be cut from 13 hours to just five.
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Egnatia
will connect more than 300 villages and communities, provide direct
access to 19 cities, 10 industrial areas, five ports and six airports,
and open up a scenic region barely known to foreign tourists. Such is
the significance of the highway that the Turkish authorities are preparing
to extend it to Istanbul.
Dimitris Fatouros, chairman
of Egnatia Odos,
the state-owned company set up to manage the project, believes the highway
has huge international importance. It is scheduled for completion in
time for the start of the Olympics, although much of it is already open
to traffic.
The Egnatia Highway will open up the Balkan market and serve the hinterlands
between Eastern Europe and the Black Sea. It will form an integral part
of the Trans-European Highway network, and eventually it will be possible
to drive from the Channel Tunnel in France to Istanbul without leaving
the motorway.
As
well as the complex financial arrangements for the project, the highway
faces enormous technical hurdles in crossing mountainous terrain, along
with serious environmental and cultural challenges as many settlements
with prehistoric, Roman and Byzantine origins have been discovered during
construction.
Sometimes new discoveries have led to design modifications so as not
to damage important historical sites. In one case, the length of a tunnel
was extended by more than a mile to preserve the acoustic and visual
aspects of an ancient amphitheatre.
“It
is a complex mixture of typical commercial aspects and difficult geo-technical,
cultural and symbolic aspects, because of the fact that for the first
time a big project like this is going through that region,” adds
Mr Fatouros.
In a sweeping arc through the western suburbs of Athens, the city centre
and out to the new airport at Spata, a new ringroad is also under construction.
Begun in 1998, the first phase, linking the city to the airport, was
completed last year, and offers relief to Athenians from the city’s
congested entry routes.
A mixture of European, state and private financing is funding the $1.4
billion scheme. Attiki Odos is the 11-member private consortium of local
companies chosen to build it.
According to Attiki Odos general manager Dimitris Papamichail, the consortium’s
local character gives it an edge. “We have implemented more than
50 per cent of the project within the time schedule,” he notes.
“We have succeeded because we are local contractors and we know
how to pass over certain difficulties, whereas a foreign contractor
would have lost a lot of time.”
As with the construction of the Egnatia Highway, Attiki Odos has had to negotiate Greece’s archaeological heritage during its excavations and, given the urban nature of the road, it has also had to navigate public utilities such as the wastewater network. Nonetheless, the work has progressed in timely fashion, and to general public satisfaction – a dispute about the location of part of the western section of the road was successfully resolved by diverting it deeper into the mountains. The expectation is that the road network should be complete in time for the Olympics in 2004.
Easing regional integration and communications
Mr
Papamichail says the project symbolises what is happening today across
the country. “The local people are very happy to welcome this new
high level of service. There are now wide, fast roads of good quality.
The Greeks could not have imagined that they would get such a high quality
service.”
Another major project is the Pathe Highway; a 730km road linking Patras
to Athens, Thessaloniki and Evzoni on the border with Bulgaria. This
north-south artery, costing around $1.72 billion, is being funded by
the EU, which seeks to further strengthen communication links within
the region. The bulk of the project consists in upgrading the existing
road to motorway standard.
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