Thessaloniki metro to be ready by 2023

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced that the metro system in Greece's second largest city, Thessaloniki, currently under construction, will be ready for public use in its entirety by April 2023.

The Greek PM added that by year's end the Central Archaeological Council (KAS) will also sign off on the appropriate curation and reinstallation of ancient artefacts recovered during construction work at the Venizelos metro station.

Mitsotakis also noted that "the city's public transport system will begin to improve noticeably in the beginning of 2020," especially since the recent signing of an agreement between the Thessaloniki urban bus system (OASTh) and the long-distance public bus company KTEL, which will see KTEL taking on some of the routes so far carried out by OASTh.

On the pending fly-over project at Thessaloniki's peripheral city road, he said that the Infrastructure ministry was preparing the way for a legal tender to be offered within a year.

"The virtual reality projected by the previous government, namely that the metro subway system would be operational in 2020 is belied by factual truth," Mitsotakis said and continued to say that "Thessaloniki will acquire a modern subway system which will also put on show some of the city's ancient history."

The Prime Minister also mentioned that in tandem to the launching of a legal tender for Thessaloniki's high-speed motorway overpass in July 2020, a second legal tender will be launched for a project that will decongest city traffic. Another tender will also relate to a road connection between the port's Pier 6 with both Egnatia Odos and Greek Motorway 1, the principal north-south road connection in the country linking Athens with the regions of Thessaly, Macedonia and with Thessaloniki.

Finally, Mitsotakis said that as far as the city's bus fleet is concerned, after the KTEL-OASTh agreement "will see a 440-buses strong fleet within six months, from the 250 buses it had in August."