Although 2023 is (and) election time for local governments, Megalos Peripatos, the communication front of the first half of Kostas Bakoyannis’ term, will not be completed before the October elections, nor in the two months that remain before the end of time.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that in the most serious urban planning and architectural intervention in many years in the center of Athens, everything went wrong. Initially, the hostile attitude of part of the public opinion towards the transport changes, as well as to the test structures in Panepistimi, the disruption of the schedule in the event of the reconstruction of the lower part of Syntagma Square, and the snail’s pace during the construction. the work in the showcase of the project (the reform of Panepistimi Street) has damaged the reputation of the project, and Kotsia Square is well aware of this.

Despite all this, the mayor of Athens assures that the university will be completely transferred to use in the summer of 2023. This is a revision of the most recent schedule, which provided for the completion of work on Easter 2023. He himself stated this in an interview with K on October 2. Since the project is being implemented in phases, resurfaced sections of the road will be delivered after the completion of each contract. However, today’s picture of the original (and only active) construction site from America Street to Sina makes this summer’s goal quite ambitious. We remind you that work began in November 2021, and the first section will be commissioned in four months (that is, before Easter 2022). In any case, Kostas Bakoyannis believes that the final image of the street will be so impressive that it will remove the initial darkening impressions: with the expansion of the sidewalks, an additional 4,270 sq.m. to pedestrians and additional green spaces of 2,260 m2 will be created with large flower beds with shrubs, and 87 new large plane trees will be planted on both sides of the road. At the same time, he denies reports of a lawsuit against the contractor who took on the project: “As it happened on the Constitution, this is an opportunity to completely modernize the infrastructure of the university, which necessarily takes time,” he tells K. .

What he seems to have been right about is the gradual adoption by drivers of transportation change. After the stage of perturbations and adjustments, delays at the “known” point of a clearly incomprehensible maneuver at the height of Bucharest, the situation is constantly improving. Exactly the same (based on personal experience) we cannot say about the case of a significant load on traffic on the descent from Arditto after the “pedesterization” of Vasilisa Olga.

But Megalos Peripatos is not only a remodeling of the University. When it has been successfully handed over to the Athenians, two of the four main projects of the original plan will have been carried out; the first was the lower part of Syntagma Square. Two more main areas remain to be implemented: the final configuration of Vassilissis Olgas Avenue in anticipation of the adoption by Bakoyannis of the Olympic Games and the program of consolidation of archaeological sites, as well as the aesthetic and functional modernization of Ermou Street into the only section that remains open to wheeled vehicles, from Aiolou Street to the square Agii Asomata in Thissio. Work on Vasilissis Olgas is expected to start early this year with an 18-month completion horizon (summer 2024). Even further is Ermou’s plan, as the approval of the study by the competent departments of the Ministry of Culture is pending.

As the municipality realizes the bad publicity that the Long March has been associated with, and as we enter an election year, it is clear that the Bakoyannis administration will decide to shift the weight of its election campaign elsewhere. The beginning of the Double Reconstruction (preliminary works on the decontamination of the territory in Botanikos begin in January) is without a doubt a success story of the current municipal government, the success of an important and tangible public, numerous admirers of Panathinaikos. The Great Walk may have lost its momentum, but the municipality reminds us that many more “important” projects will be completed in 2023 than the university. As a rule, they mention the revival of the National Garden of Lycabettus (rehabilitation of footpaths and emergency flood control operations with the corresponding opening of the symbolic theater many years later), as well as Strefi Hill, a project that met with a systematic reaction from some residents and local authorities, as well also a project funded by a private organization.