Public transport bearing brunt of Athens bottlenecks

The return on Monday of restriction on vehicles circulating in central Athens may have led to fewer cars downtown, but traffic jams are now the norm on the surrounding road network. 

Paradoxically, despite the increase in their numbers, city buses are operating with fewer passengers. This is because they get stuck in the heavy traffic ringing the city center and are no longer viewed as a useful means of transport by passengers who have to be at their destination at a certain time.

“Public transport can’t operate independently; instead it must be perfectly harmonized with the transport system of the city. On the one hand, its operation should be facilitated (unobstructed traffic on the bus lanes, exclusive traffic routes etc); on the other hand, citizens should be constantly motivated to choose it over cars,” Panagiotis Papantoniou, president of the Association of Greek Transportation Specialists, told Kathimerini.