From Saturday the metro return to the phase it was during 2004, when the last stop of the “blue line” was at the Defense Ministry and not the airport.
25 000 passengers, who were getting on the metro at Halandri, Doukissis Plakentias, Palini, Kantza, and Koropi will have to find an alternative way of transportation towards the center or the airport. All this is because of the building of three new stop stations of the metro line, which will service the passengers from Holargos, Monetnya Yard, and Aghia Paraskevi.
Experts believe that 2/3rds of the travelers will prefer to take their cars, which will lead to traffic jams and the driving speed will get to 8km/h. According to calculations the pick hours will be until 09:00am and after noon between 03:00-06:00pm.
The forecasts are that the parking spots around the Ministry of Defense and Katehaki will not be enough because most of the people will leave there cars there in order to get on the metro. On the other hand, the street traffic will increase with 10%, which will lead to 30% decrease of speed. In other words, if a car was driving with 15km/h during the pick hours, while all metro stations were open, now and in the upcoming months the speed will decrease to 8km/h. It is also forecasted that the driving speed on central Athens roads will decrease. According to some researches, the cars on the central roads, during the pick hours will increase with 1100.
Even though the Public Transportation Organization has provided some express bus lines (number 5 and 6), it is not sure whether Athenians will leave their cars in front of their houses. Calculations show that from 25 000 people who were using the metro, 5000 were traveling towards the airport. From the rest 20 000, 2/3rds willprefer to use their cars and only 1 out of every 3 people will use the public transportation.
Everybody hopes that the new metro stations will be ready in the next six months, just like the official projects says and until then – patience…
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