Did Athens’ ‘Great Walk’ Stumble?
In May, the Greek capital embarked on an ambitious plan to transform its traffic-clogged downtown with bike lanes and pedestrian walkways. But things didn’t work out as planned.
Despite a rosy vision of “the most beautiful walk in Europe,” the launch of a car-free initiative in Athens was met with widespread criticism.
Photo courtesy City of Athens
The vision was simple: Athens would embark on a radical rethink of the heart of the Greek capital, slashing car lanes and parking spots and replacing traffic-clogged arterials with spacious tree-lined pedestrian boulevards. Conceived in 2019 and dubbed the “Great Walk” (“Megalos Peripatos” in Greek), the plan followed in the footsteps of several other successful pedestrianization projects in cities like Paris and Barcelona. In February 2019, during his successful campaign, mayoral candidate Kostas Bakoyiannis boasted that the vision of linking the ancient archeological wonders of central Athens along a car-free route could create “the most beautiful walk in Europe.”
When the coronavirus pandemic came in early 2020, the lockdown that helped to still the city’s traffic from late March to June seemed to offer the ideal opportunity to accelerate the project; Bakoyiannis, now Athens’ mayor, launched it as a six-month pilot in May.