Ministry of Infrastructure

Despite the rain complicating matters since yesterday afternoon, the pre-inauguration events at the “Venizelos” station of Thessaloniki’s metro were both impressive and deeply moving for many.

See video from APE-MPE on the history of the Thessaloniki Metro

Hello, we’ve just come out of a satisfying long weekend for the October 28th holiday with a lot of traffic on the national highways as well as the Attiki Odos, which now inevitably needs to be expanded in the coming years because, simply put, it can’t hold us all anymore.

– Greetings! Just when we were almost done with the PASOK crowd and thought we’d be bored with the government’s dull antics, bam, the SYRIZA people pop up to give us life and fodder for instant commentary. Kasselakis exploded in fury because, as EfSyn (a newspaper aligned with them) reported, some details from his declaration of assets came to light.

You’ve started your commute to work. Your mobile app tells you it will take 1 hour and 45 minutes to reach your destination. Athens resembles a vast parking lot. All major roads, even neighborhood streets, are clogged with traffic, and you long for the days when the same journey took only 20 minutes.

The final section of Kifissos Avenue is not the only part of the country's infrastructure that hasn't been cleaned or maintained in decades.

Following decades of delays, the main line of the Thessaloniki Metro will definitely start operating in November, Ministry of Infrastructure officials said Tuesday.

But the extension to the suburb of Kalamaria will be further delayed and will not open until the end of 2025, they said.

The Ministry of Infrastructure has left open the possibility of building side tolls at Varibobi and Agios Stefanos on the Athens-Lamia national road, as well as frontal tolls at the exit to Halkida, but only if "hybrid" (i.e. pay-by-the-mile) tolls are created.

It is very likely that the extension of Kymis Avenue in northern Athens, the extension of the Western Ring Road of Ymittos toward Elliniko, and other projects that were planned but have not yet started will be shelved by the Ministry of Infrastructure.

Could precise mileage charging be the answer to big toll hikes? Two years after the troubled e-toll tender was cancelled, the question has been abandoned. The only concessionaire implementing a hybrid mileage charging system remains Olympia Odos, while the rest have turned to discount plans through their transceivers.

The Ministry of Infrastructure, and not the regions, will undertake the damage restoration projects in Thessaly and Evia, the two regions that were badly affected following the deadly Storms Daniel and Elias in September 2023.