ATHENS – What the walking tour guide books and sites don’t tell about navigating through Athens is that in places it’s just risky and even dangerous because sidewalks are narrow, often covered with trees – or cars – and in bad condition.

Just ask Helena Smith, the veteran correspondent in the Greek capital for the British newspaper The Guardian, who earlier in 2024 took a fall when her foot hit a marble step jutting onto a sidewalk – common, if unlawful but unenforced.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/31/an-epidemic-of-falls-on-the-mean-streets-of-athens

She grabbed the step’s railing to break her fall but it got worse because that broke instead, collapsing in her hands and putting more force into her fall onto the sidewalk, resulting in a broken shoulder and ongoing physiotherapy.

The sidewalks in Athens are rarely mentioned because residents are used to them, and used to not using them, often walking in the streets because it’s safer than stepping on holes, broken concrete or other obstacles, including vehicles.

Parking on sidewalks, and even on thoroughfares in blocking traffic, is common in Greece and rare indeed is the sight of a police officer who can often expect to be pilloried by an offender for daring to write a citation.

Tourists notice it though because many came from places with real sidewalks that are kept in good condition, are broad and safe and they don’t have to worry that their next step will land them on the ground, or in a hospital.

“The mean streets of Athens are an obstacle course daily blamed for such injuries (or worse). Like the marble step that town hall officials later branded illegal, all manner of ‘visual noise’ – starting with ­motorbikes and cars -occupies ­valuable pavement space,” she added.

New Mayor Haris Doukas said Athens has “significant accessibility challenges” and said that he’ll try to do something about it although no mayor has, but he vowed to “We’ll be working intensely to confront the problem of illegal parking, to replace damaged pavements, to introduce ramps,” he said earlier, and added that 44 percent of older people and those with disabilities find it hard to get around.

It’s rare to find handicapped openings on sidewalks, or parking spots for those with disabilities and when you do there’s a chance someone who’s not disabled has parked there for convenience, without having to worry about it.

ONE STEP OVER THE LINE

As one posting online put it: “At first glance, Athens can appear more like an obstacle course than a treasure hunt for those with limited mobility,” although there are about 1000 parking spaces for them.

Athens is a walkable city, with access on foot between neighborhoods relatively easy if you don’t want to take the metro but that Google map indicating walking time doesn’t take into account weaving around broken parts of sidewalks, trees and cars.

Former Mayor Kostas Bakoyiannis experimented with a Grand Walk through the city that eliminated traffic lanes but was widely panned for it, especially by businesses who want food and vehicular traffic reaching them.

Sidewalks were extended, traffic limited, bicycle lanes formed and flowers and trees planted to create a promenade through the heart of a city whose users like to use cars almost as much as Californians, embracing noise and chaos.

Among those on social media upset about the state of the sidewalks, the newspaper said, are pensioners demanding that authorities “give sidewalks back to pedestrians,” who have to detour on streets in many places.

“Everyone seems to think pavements are an extension of their property,” said one retiree, explaining why walking in Athens had become such a perilous act, but the problem has grown worse as there is almost impunity for violations.

It’s become more visible with record numbers of tourists coming in, and Athens becoming a buzz city despite its relative charmlessness, filthy buildings, broken sidewalks and graffiti as common as places without paint.

Athens is expected to get about 7 million visitors in 2024 – about 10 times the population, the city behind only Paris as the most densely-populated in Europe, and more coming every year all the time.

The report noted the griping online on sites such as TripAdvisor that are beacons for travelers seeking what to see and what to avoid and the reviews are not good for Athens with tips on “how to avoid tripping or falling while walking” in the city.

“I’m used to sidewalks in better condition where I’m from,” wrote Denny, an American visiting the capital last year. “What I’m concerned about is tripping or stumbling … Is it OK to walk in the street when the sidewalk appears dangerous?”

One responder said: “Yes, but just be careful 🙂 My advice (& what I do as I’d be sure to trip if I didn’t!) is to look down at where you’re walking, don’t look at sites, scenery etc while still on the move …”

PEDOMETER OR HURDLEOMETER?

The pedestrian rights group Pezi said the poor condition of the sidewalks accounts for why “the most vulnerable of pedestrians have almost disappeared from public areas, with the handicapped, parents with children and strollers rarely seen.

“I joined Pezi 20 years ago when I began noticing how difficult it was for my ageing father to walk as little as 200 meters (656 feet) because on any pavement it meant going up and down, leaping from here to there, to avoid all the hurdles,” said Nikos Stappas, an environmental engineer.

“Sadly progress has been very slow. There are effective, low-cost policies that could easily be enforced but planning is all over the place. I think people have totally lost hope,” he said, and unlike beach takeovers there aren’t protests about sidewalks.

And where sidewalks aren’t broken they are frequently taken over by restaurants who plunk chairs and tables on them for customers, often exceeding the space allowed under licenses or not bothering to get one and rarely being cited.

Then there’s planter boxes, rubbish, garbage bins, protective barriers known as bollards that keep cars off pedestrian walkways, but not motorcycles who use them as shortcuts, and assorted pillars and poles and other obstacles.

“Which is why lightning reflexes are so often required to navigate sidewalks made impassable because they are so narrow,” wrote Smith, pointing out that Athens also has one of the highest car ownership rates in the world: 816 for every 1000 people.

Alexandros Bartzokas-Tsiompras, an urban planner who has spent the past three years coordinating the Walkable Athens project, told the newspaper that improvements could be made, if there’s a will, and there hasn’t been yet.

believes it can, but only if tough choices are made and visionary policies applied. “To improve sidewalks we need to overcome the issue of parking and to do that we need to improve public transport, create electric bike-sharing stations at metro stops, introduce a London-style congestion charge and no-parking streets,” he said.

Deputy Mayor Andreas Grammatikoyiannis said his office is flooded with claims from people seeking compensation, not said how long it takes, how many are paid and what the cost is to the city.

“If it were up to me cars would be banned from the historic center so we can concentrate on installing decent routes for pedestrians. At the end of the day we have to decide what sort of character we want our city to have,” he said.