Gas Prices Pump Up Support for Drilling; Big Oil winning?

Kifissia is a suburb. The line was extended to Kifissia in 1957, exactly like the article says.....until then it was only underground where it had been for decades, the central city......

John Fragakis (Athens,Greece) reports on opening ceremony, 28 Jan 2000:

Athens Metro TicketThe partial opening of the new Athens Subway System was widely celebrated among politicians and citizens, as a reliable infrastructure that would offer the city a much more promising future. It is a general fact that the Athens metro will contribute a lot to the city's legendary traffic conditions: distances travelled in 1 hour during peak times, can now be reduced to 9 minutes!

KEY FEATURES: The basic project consists of two lines running from northeast to southwest [line 3] and from northwest to southeast of the central area [line 2] corresponding at "Syntagma" transfer station. An older existing line [line 1 or "ISAP"), historic, as it is operating since 1869, is linked to the new network at "Omonia" - most central square of Athens -and two more stations. Additionally, the new network includes 18.2 km of line length, 21 new stations and is built totally underground. Two TBMs (tunnel boring machines) were used to open the tunnels, and stations were built using both NATM and Cut-and-Cover methods. A basic question asked about Athens metro is how the construction of such a large project would not affect the city's vivid historic nature, as it is taking place in the most interesting locations of classical times. In fact, building the metro, offered a unique chance to bring to light a multitude of archaeological treasures and promote the research over the form and features of the city throughout the centuries. The most extended excavations ever known in Athens took place in stations like Syntagma, Academia and Olympieion revealing bathhouses, metal working shops, aqueducts and cisterns, ancient roads and city walls and even an enigmatic room with oil lamps decorated with erotic scenes. Many of the smaller exhibits are presented in the stations themselves, while "Syntagma" can boast a ground's section preserved to its original stratigraphy and can be seen through a curtain wall. The rest of the project lies to the safety of great depths as it is built 20-30m below surface, which is far from public infrastructure networks and antiquites level, thus avoiding costly and time consuming disruptions. The geological and geotechnical conditions along the 18 km alignment of Athens Metro lines have been extensively investigated, analysed and evaluated. A vast number of boreholes were performed prior and during the construction period drawing valuable conclusions over the geophysical and geotectonical features of the subsoil and the presence of water. Everybody learned about "Athens Schist", scientifically described as a sequence of originally sedimentary, flysch-like rocks of possible Upper Cretaceous age, that have been subsequently subjected to metamorphosis". Despite the knowledge acquired through studies, real-time conditions proved significantly diverse. Unstable soil caused numerous problems across several parts of the city center as a demolition of a building and continous subsidences in "Panepistimiou" avenue. Metro was making news all throughout October 1997, when viewers experienced, during a regular live transmision, the unexpected disappearing of a news-stand into the ground. Hundreds of tons of concrete were needed to stabilize the soil causing an unprecedented mess on already congested traffic and leading to a series of disputes about responsibility.

EXTENSIONS. According to a metro development study, carried out during the construction period, several extension projects have been scheduled. Four of them are to be completed by 2004 - year of the Olympic games for Athens - and two more by 2006 adding a total length of 27.4 km and 23 new stations to the network. Line 3 [Ethniki Amyna-Syntagma] will be extended in both directions heading for "Stayros"- a key interchange of a new freeway and future railway leading to the new Athens international airport at Spata- and "Egaleo"- a densely populated western suburb. Line 2 [Sepolia-Dafni] will continue to "Peristeri"- one of the largest urban concentrations in Athens- and "Glyfada", joining the city center with the sea-front.

Thanks for this contribution to UrbanRail.Net in March 2000.

I'll be glad to forward you my property tax bill so you can pay my BART surcharge -- I'll have a good dinner for four at Roy's with the savings.

georgeob, You're using one failed mass transit system to throw the baby out with the bath water. You should know better. If you dig a little, you'll find government subsidized mass transit systems that work for the benefit of the many.

Here's an extreme example of what can happen without mass transit: Tokyo would be a parking lot without their mass transit system, and its use benefit everybody who lives and visits there.

Bangkok is the opposite; they have what is described as the mother of all traffic jams, because they lack mass transit.

jeez, I ride BART all the time; is it really properly described as 'failed?'

Aspects of it do suck and it is too expensive, but it works.

Cycloptichorn

Bart was one of our very early systems. Its design set the standard for several that followed, notably including the Washington metro. Some significant engineering & construction challenges weere met, including seismic issues; a long tunnel under the bay (including a three-level segment near the Embarcadero where a muni tunnel passes directly over it). I wouldn't call it a failed system at all. Its most serious defect is that it doesn't reach either Marin County or the peninsula south of San Francisco. However those issues were political and had no direct connection to the BART project.

My point was simply that passengers are generally unwilling to pay the real costs for the operation of such systems - here, in Europe, or China for that matter.

That's also true of flying; most airlines were running billion dollar deficits, but kept operating at a loss. Transportation is an important ingredient for a successful economy, and government subsidies may be necessary for the benefit of the society at large - even when the public is unwilling to pay the full fare.

That's a hard general proposition to defend. Government subsidies usually breed sloppy management, indifference to customers and stagnation instead of innovation. AMTRAC is a good example of this. Mass Transit is and always has involved such dilemmas in this country.

I ran the Transportation Division of Kaiser for a few years and was part of the Joint ventures that managed the design/construction of the Los Angeles, Baltimore, Denver, MARTA (Atlanta) and Taipei metrorail systems, and also the design of systems for Seattle & Honolulu that, owing to political issues, were never built. We also did the BART Livermore extention and their rail car maintenance facility near Colma. It is always very difficult for any city government to persuade its citizens to take on the long-term financial obligations attendant to such systems, no matter how badly they are needed. That's what killed the planned systems in Seattle and Honolulu - even after the designs were nearly complete; and despite continuing massive gridlock on the roads & freeways.

I think that urban mass transit is something only authoritarian governments can do well: local democracies generally aren't able to do it.

Our Airlines operate on a nearly pure profit system, however, subject to extensive government regulation and generally backward and inept coordination from the FAA (and its air traffic controllers union). Our system is breaking down rapidly due to high fuel prices, intense price competition, and a general public unwillingness to pay for the cost of good service, similar to that facing mass transit.

European passenger rail systems are generally vastly superior to ours. However they involve huge government subsidies and repeated government financial bailouts of the captive companies that design and build them. They have, however, found effective ways to maintain very good levels of service.