PM, President attend opening ceremony for Thessaloniki metro
President Katerina Sakellaropoulou and Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis were attending on Saturday afternoon a ceremony for the official opening of the Thessaloniki Metro on Saturday afternoon.
The handover ceremony will take place at the Pylaia depot, home to the state-of-the-art control centre ensuring the Metro’s safe operation.
Following the ceremony, the gates will open to the public. Passengers can travel free of charge until Tuesday, December 3. From Wednesday, December 4, a fare of 60 cents will apply, with a monthly travel card priced at 16 euros.
The main line, spanning 9.6 km from the New Railway Station to Nea Elvetia, includes two independent single-track tunnels, 13 stations, and a 17-minute travel time. The Metro, equipped with 18 fully automated, air-conditioned trains, will operate without drivers but with attendants and automatic doors, serving an estimated 250,000 passengers daily.
An extension to Kalamaria, with five additional stations, is set to open by late 2025. Plans are also underway for expansions to Thessaloniki’s western and northern districts.
Danger superfluous and unjust
We’ve heard it before, that cameras on our streets will force Greek drivers to improve their behavior, reducing the number of deaths and injuries that make our roads among the most dangerous in the European Union. In the past, though, the cameras turned out to be useless, and their handling was inadequate or nonexistent. Drivers ignored them and continued to violate the traffic code. Whether showing off, indifferent to our own and others’ safety, whether accepting fatalistically that the high number of dead and injured is an unavoidable tax for an unruly nation, whether seduced by political charlatans, the result is that last year we recorded 60 deaths per million inhabitants, with the EU average at 46. Improving infrastructure and imposing better vehicle maintenance help up to a point. What is needed is coordination between state services, credible policing and the acquiescence of citizens.
Yesterday, three ministries and the Regional Authority of Attica unveiled their plan for a new network of cameras in Athens and the establishment of a single information system, under the management of a department of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transportation. The cameras will record violations of the speed limit, of traffic lights and of pedestrian crossings. They will record drivers using telephones, as well as those not wearing seat belts or helmets. The network will be awarded, through open tender in mid-2025, to a private company, which will fund the purchase and maintenance of the cameras. The information side of the network will be ready in the same year. Fines that remain unpaid will be sent to the state revenue service for collection.
Perhaps this time we may see results. If the system is implemented as described on Thursday, procedures will be simplified, the human factor will be removed from the process (through automation), and the responsibilities of various ministries and services will be clarified. But perhaps the most important factor is that very many citizens are exasperated by the impunity enjoyed by scofflaws, which deepens the sense that we do not live under the rule of law, that we are continually exposed to danger that is superfluous and unjust.
Why are our streets so deadly?
Six people {were killed in the streets of Attica in 24 hours from Thursday to Friday, raising some serious questions. Is it just a very unfortunate coincidence, or is it the expected outcome of the sum of a series of particular attitudes? Is six fatalities in one day – and especially when they all occur in the broader metropolitan area of the capital – a number that ought to create some kind of reaction, or can it be dismissed as we deal with more “serious” matters?
Less than a month ago, meanwhile, another six people were killed in the space of two weeks in five accidents on central Athens thoroughfares. Surely we don’t need to look at the official data from the Hellenic Statistical Authority to confirm what we already sense: that the number of traffic accidents is rising – by 10.8% in the first eight months of this year compared with the same period in 2022, in fact – and more people are dying on the country’s roads.
But what is it that makes Greece have such a poor record in this area? Apart from all usual measures that are constantly being demanded and heralded and all the demands and promises that are actually implemented – like more police on the streets, more checks, more cameras and stricter fines – are there no other solutions that do not require a state that coddles its delinquent children? Does a behavior need to be imposed, again and again, so that it takes root? Will people who talk on their phones when driving stop doing so if they get fined for it?
Some argue that if you need stricter rules, you’ve already failed at addressing the real challenge. One of the country’s preeminent authorities and campaigners on road safety, Anastasios Markouizos (who goes by the moniker Iaveris, or Javert), told Kathimerini in a recent interview that he believes “many drivers, and especially younger ones, overestimate their abilities, underestimate the conditions and do not prioritize their own safety or that of the people around them. They are confrontational and aggressive rather than being guided by a sense of empathy and self-preservation. This is why so many lives are unfortunately lost on the streets.”
His observations may be the key to understanding an attitude if not to solving the problem. So, how do we make motorists less overconfident and confrontational? How do we blunt these sharp edges? And how so we do this without blaming everything on the usual culprit, the family? Can faults in a person’s character be fixed like faults in a car engine?
These are complex issues that take a lot of time and discussion to address and may never be fully resolved. In the meantime, though, perhaps we could do something simple like including some kind of simulation in driving classes and tests that help candidate motorists get better control of their impulses.