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[GR] Greece | road infrastructure • Ελληνικοί Αυτοκινητόδρομοι

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#1 ·
Greece signs $1.8 billion deal for west coast highway; could be ready by 2013
19 December 2006

ATHENS, Greece (AP) - The government on Tuesday said it had signed a $1.8 billion agreement with a consortium of Greek and Spanish contractors to build a 237-mile highway along the country's western coast.

"The contract for the Ionian Road was signed today. It will be ratified in January by parliament and construction will begin in May," Environment and Public Works Minister Giorgios Souflias said.

The project is expected to be completed within 72 months after starting, Souflias said, meaning it could be finished sometime in 2013.

The deal was signed after the consortium comprising Greek construction firms GEK Group of Companies SA and Terna SA, together with Spain's Cintra SA and Actividades de Construccion y Servicios SA was named as preferred bidders.

It will build and operate the road, receiving toll fees for 30 years, investing a combined $1.51 billion in the project. The remaining funds will be provided by the European Union and the Greek government.

The highway will connect the new Rio-Antirrio bridge to the northwestern city of Ioannina, linking with the Egnatia motorway that will span northern Greece as far as the border with Turkey.
 
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#2,154 ·
#2,156 · (Edited)
^^
Nevertheless, point 3 will be solved when the new road will be totally upgraded to a motorway (A27). After this, both EO2 and EO3 will follow the old road, anyway. But I insist that there are already blue signs on the new road bearing A27. I checked it again and although it seems useless to have two national roads with different numbers running in parallel, you are right, Stavros.

As the new (green) road has been signed as A27, I consider if the mappers should put A27 there and EO2/EO3 to the old (red) road.
 
#2,167 ·
Dear friends. I admire too much all your efforts at OSM, but I consider to give it up. Sorry… I would try to jusitfy my opinion, with a rather long message unfortunately. Some points are the same I keep complaining about, since I joined SSC.

The whole thing is a mess and it seems that there are no people in official posts as well as transportation experts with the needed knowledge in how to deal with it. It seems that the poor old guys who projected some numbering systems even back in the 30’s and 40’s and those who created the 1963 system, were by far more suitable than their successors.

The 1963 decree used odd numbers for north-south and even ones for east-west directions. They also treated EO1-EO9 and EO2-EO8 as fundamental with their own ‘systematic’, while odd numbers EO13-EO39 were arranged to be to the west of EO1 and EO51-EO99 to the east plus the Aegean Islands and Crete. Even numbers EO12-EO94 were just increasing form north to south. They also left quite a significant amount of numbers free for further use.

Since 1963 the first logical thing would, one of the things that was stated to the decree: To put the numbers on direction and other information signs. But they didn’t to the vast majority of such signs. Another logical thing was in the cases of ‘new’ roads to give the number to this one and avoid situations like EO1/EO1a, EO8/EO8a etc. It would be more efficient to ‘award’ EO1, EO8 etc. to the ‘new’ roads. This is what they did in other cases – therefore a case of double standards. And finally new numbers should be given according to the above mentioned system. Instead of it they gave EO10 to a north-south road in the Peloponnese and EO52 to a road to the most northern part of the country. According to the 1963 provisions, EO10 could be the today’s EO52, while the road in the Peloponnese could be a continuity or the EO13-EO39 series, probably EO41 (all odd EO4x numbers are unused).

Then the age of motorways came. The first idea in the early 90’s was to use only the E-road number. Then they thought to use the same number of the parallel or the ‘covered’ national road and finally when they started construction of Attiki Odos they decided to create another system. This seems to me to be OK, maybe with two exceptions. The one is the southern part of the A5 and the use of A90 in Crete (may be according to the initial A/EO numbers connection). I would personally give A9 to the Patra – Tsakona motorway and either A10 or A90 to the Cretan North Axis. Both numbers would be OK as I do not thing that in the future Crete will have more motorways, other than this and maybe a second one to the new Irakleio Airport – the latter could take something like A15-A19 or A99 in each case. Another thing is that I find an oddity is to have 3-digit A-numbers while the lesser EO category to go up to EO99; I do not take into account the 1998 3-digit additions. If you count existing and future motorways numbers A1-A99 would be enough – note also that by adding prefix ‘A’ on motorway shields that Axyz becomes less visible on high speeds.

Meanwhile Greek Statistics issued the 1998 update about national roads, ignoring the distinction between motorways and national roads – new motorways like Egnatia or Attiki Odos took also ‘stupid’ EO-numbers. And to make things worse, in 2008 the authorities assigned A-numbers to roads that maybe never become motorways. And this ‘stupidity’ fitted ‘well’ to the discussed new Ptolemaïda – Florina road or the Komotini – Nymfaia one. Both were then signed as A27 and A23 with blue signs. No logic or knowledge at all, or just I am an idiot? Anyway, whatever I am, the first one should at the moment be numbered something like EO3a or with the logic I stated two paragraphs above as EO2/EO3 – sorry, no numbers for the old roads – and when this will become a proper motorway then it may take A27 and EO2/EO3 should be re-instated to the old road. According to my logic ‘A23’ might be numbered as EO49 as a backward continuation to the EO51-EO99 series.

And there is another ‘unlucky’ development. Thanks to Antje and I am aware of a project made by Egnatia Odos consultants, which attempted to put on paper the current situation. This project totally ignored all A-numbers and also includes other arrangements to the 1963/1998 EO numbering (for example, that problematic EO52 (1998) is shown as part of EO51 etc.).

But who cares and who has the knowledge (and the interest)? The proper thing would be to re-number EO’s with a coherent and proper system – ‘proper’ means to justify which road must be considered as ‘national’. But what do you expect from authorities who paid, who knows how much, six (6) ‘experts’ to create the motorway signing guidelines. And then the ‘experts’ just copied the German regulations changing only the… colors (blue to green, gold to blue) and requiring to either use a different system (fonts, arrows, EO shields) in parallel to the existing one for other roads or create the need to change the one which covers the 99% of the network to comply with the one for the 1% of it. The latter seems to be the case since then. By then the authorities had already introduced capital fonts and then re-introduced the mixed case ones, had being using number shields 1, 2, 3,… and then asked for A1, A2, A3,… (A1, A6 and its tributaries and A90 do not care to change their 1, 6, 90 shields – that was the one ‘new’ idea of the ‘experts’) and had started numbering exits with a unique system for all motorways (like the one in Cyprus), then decided to use 1, 2, 3,… for each individual motorway and then the ‘experts’ came and introduced their second ‘new’ idea to number exits by the Km point; surprise, surprise no one has complied with it.

This is why and with GREAT respect to Antje, JayCBR and ALL others who try it at the OSM project, I find the whole effort as ‘windmill hunting’ (see Don Quixote). And I needn’t to mention provincial road numbers appearing as EO’s on signs (see for example exits 25, 25a of the A2), blue E-road numbers (see for example along the A27/EO2/EO3 or EO51), green EO-numbers on rectangles or on motorway shields (see for example at the Larisa 4 exit of the A1 – EO6 is shown as (A)6), exit numbers shown as EO’s (see for example Ovrya K4 exit at the A5 indicated as EO4) etc. etc.

Finally there is no need to say at this point anything about the provincial road network, as it may be pointless, while there is such a mess to the national system. Again sorry, for the long message.
 
#2,169 ·
All the madness, inefficiency and uselessness of the Greek state in a few paragraphs.

It is our fault in the end, people's fault, that we tolerate these madmen that destroyed our country and they are not even able to implement a normal signing system.

"Who cares" is the only thing heard in these offices, the offices of needlessness and corruption. The ministries of Greece.

Such a pity.
 
#2,170 ·
Somehow I think that this crude stunt will inevitably lead to the abandonment of any EU Co Funded road project not nearing full completion or key stage completion today.

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_04/04/2015_548813

Kathimerini understands that Economy Minister Giorgos Stathakis on Friday abandoned an attempt at the last minute to change the law to allow the central government to use money from the European Union-funded National Strategic Reference Framework (ESPA) that regional authorities were destined to use to pay for co-financed projects.

Stathakis ended his attempt to transfer these funds to the Bank of Greece after meeting regional governors, who were opposed to the move.
 
#2,172 ·
I'll start by saying that ea1969 & I, share the same view about the road numbering system in Greece.:nuts:

This map illustrates my opinion regarding the Ptolemaida/Florina region. Of course, I can give you a hand with other areas, as well.

  • The under construction road towards the Niki customs, is part of the A27 and should be signed as such. This section will have motorway characteristics, without hard shoulder (emergency lane), however.
  • The pink section, although it is not present any more, it was part of the old national road 3. The section that bypasses the lignite mine is not part of the original EΟ 3. It is just an alternative route.
  • The stretch marked as ΠΕΟ 2 should be characterized as EO 2. The national road 2 follows the route north to the lakes and not south. As a result, all of the sections south of the lakes appearing as EO 2 & 3 should be assigned either as EO 3 or ΠΕΟ 3.
  • The green stretches of EO 3 may remain as EO 3, though they appear as A27 the informatory signs. A more preferable decision would be to assign these sections as EO 3α, but such a number does not exist in any official state document.
  • The segment between the points 1 & 2 (in circles) should be characterized as ΕΟ 3.
  • The segment between the points 2 & 3 (in circles) is past of both EO 2 and ΠΕΟ 3, and should be characterized as such.
 
#2,173 ·
Another thread tend to be ruined (like many others in the Hellenic Agora) by the endleess "anathemas" for the politicians. IMO of course critique is welcome for certain politics of certain ministries (in our case the Ministry of Infrastructure, Transport and Networks) but this thread is about roads not the general political situation in the country.

I dont like the big political parties of the country (never liked them) but there are dedicated threads for this kind of discussions. Personally i will stop participating in this thread if this trend continue.
 
#2,174 ·
I came here to enrich my knowledge of the Greek road numbers and the new projects, and it is sad that it is now going down the irrelevant political stuff. Things went so well until now, but I cannot give up otherwise there will be no one to get find out and disseminate great information about Greek roads from the thread's contributors I have seen so far.


Neo Faliro Junction by κύριαsity, on Flickr
 
#2,175 ·
concerning newer highways replacing old ones i am in a dilemma: either we label the original routes as EO1,EO2 etc and the newer parts EO1a,EO2a (used for many roads in the 1998 registry of national roads), either we treat them like E-numbers (labeling the best possible route as EO1,EO2 etc and leaving the old ones without a number or as ΠΕΟ1,ΠΕΟ2)
 
#2,177 ·
As far as I know the national roads do act like E-numbers: that is the concept of road numbers: to show a route from A to B.

I've taken a break from road numbering on OSM due to intensifying studies, confining myself to finding and refining toll sections on motorways, but I am confident that ΕΟ1 ≠ ΕΟ1α, meaning that Katerini to Chakidona via Alexandreia is certainly ΕΟ1 proper. I know it is tempting to use ΠΕΟ1, but bear in mind that it is not just the magnitude of deviation, drivers also want to avoid toll roads considering a certain current situation, if only just to make the most of the information we have. That would be my opinion on that part of ΕΟ1 :)
 
#2,176 ·
The problem of the non-completion of motorways is unfortunately exclusively political. This is what we have been commenting and it is not a general discussion about politics.

When somebody wishes to remove money from the construction of motorways and give it for another cause, then this is something that concerns the motorways themselves.

Nobody started a political discussion for Christ's sake...
 
#2,178 · (Edited)
Hi Antje, i thing you will find interesting the following. Couple weeks ago i created a thread about The Hellenikon project in Athens. One of the things they will do in the area is to dig a part of Poseidonos avenue and create an underground tunnel.

Current:





Future:



=============================

Also from Athens, a photo i took last August of an u/c footbridge in Mesogeion avenue:

 
#2,181 ·
^^ Yes since late March Stylida bypass is in use, you are welcome :)
 
#2,185 ·
Regarding the next big motorway that is scheduled to be constructed, the Patra-Pyrgos motorway:

So far we knew that the motorway will be build as a whole with a price of around 450 million euros.

The new governement seems to be in favor of breaking the road in 8 or 9 parts and they aim to start the tendering procedure in the next 2 or 3 months. If all goes well then the road could be tendered by the end of this summer, although taking into considerarion previous experience this may seem a bit optimistic.

This road is very important, because its construction will close the "circle" of motorways in Peloponnisos (Peloponnese). It must be noted that the full road runs from Patra to Pyrgos to Kalo Nero and then meets A7. At the moment the discussions are for the first part (Patra-Pyrgos) and hopefully in the future there will be discussions for the southern part Kalo Nero - A7 (Tsakwna) - the middle part Pyrgos-Kalo Nero is highly unlikely to be build due to huge environmental concerns regarding Kaiafas Lake.
 
#2,187 ·
Regarding the next big motorway that is scheduled to be constructed, the Patra-Pyrgos motorway:
The new governement seems to be in favor of breaking the road in 8 or 9 parts and they aim to start the tendering procedure in the next 2 or 3 months. If all goes well then the road could be tendered by the end of this summer, although taking into considerarion previous experience this may seem a bit optimistic.
At the moment the discussions are for the first part (Patra-Pyrgos) and hopefully in the future there will be discussions for the southern part Kalo Nero - A7 (Tsakwna) - the middle part Pyrgos-Kalo Nero is highly unlikely to be build due to huge environmental concerns regarding Kaiafas Lake.
Sorry, I'm a little bit confused. I thought works on the first 75km section were started, then suspended but restarted in 2014 :nuts:.

The northern part (Patra-Pyrgos) is more advanced because there is already work done and as the article says "even when the project was stopped, the archaeological work continued".

The length of the three parts (as I read in the article):
1) 75 km
2) 55 km
3) 30 km

^^
As far as I know, yes.

Today's article:
http://ypodomes.com/index.php/autok...ώθηκε-η-δημοπράτηση-για-το-τμήμα-πάτρα-πύργος

The minister of public construction works said that the "Patra-Pyrgos" part will be auctioned until the 30/06 and the road will be finished within the first half of 2016 along with the road from Korinthos to Patra.

The southern part "Kalo Nero-Tsakwna" will be auctioned by the end of 2014 and will be finished after the end of 2016.

So we expect that by early 2017 (in less than three years' time) the biggest part of Ionia Odos (A5) to be finished. It is a big accomplishment given the current situation in Greece and it is a road that will help the west part of Greece very very much.
I guess works didn't resume in 2014 but it's announced for 2015 again.
Do you have any info about the 8-9 sections (from .. to, length)?

@Autoputevi kao hobi: He regularly reports news and I'm used to annoy him if there's any question for detail ;)
 
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