You can’t do anything about it
Introduction
No need for a long introduction when discussing traffic problems in many major cities around the world today. We all know what it’s like to waste large amounts of time, money and contribute to hazardous air pollution every day, trying to commute to work or travel to various places in a big city, via cars.
We will take the example of Athens, the capital of Greece.
The city packs almost half of the entire population of the country if you count in suburbs, but falls in the middle tier for population density—more compact than cities like Berlin, but not as crowded as Paris.
If you ask a random person living in Athens today, about the traffic situation, she/he will almost certainly say it’s worse than ever. That same person, also believes there aren’t really any solutions to the problem.
In this brief article, we will address not only possible solutions to the traffic problems of Athens (and other cities globally), but also touch first, upon the reasons that these problems appeared in the first place.
The Situation
Greece (like many other countries) was hit by severe and uncontrolled urbanization, in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, already causing huge traffic problems to its capital since the early 80’s. The trend continues to a lesser extend until today, but the imbalance between the economic and social opportunities between Greece’s capital and other large cities and its rural areas is huge, obligating people (especially of young age) to move to larger cities. This multidecade trend coupled with Greece’s Capital lack of, and inability to create necessary infrastructure both on residential housing but also, on roads, parking places, parks and effective public transport means, has created a landscape that contributes to huge traffic problems for its citizens.
Solutions
We believe that there are both short-term and long-term solutions to Athen’s traffic issues, many of them applicable also to other cities around the world.
Before we dive into these solutions, it is important to also note here that the solutions that are circulated currently, are very short sighted and can only marginally improve the situation in our view.
More public buses, more metro stations and more roads in the already crowded and overbuilt capital of Greece are very welcomed, but these additional infrastructure expenditures will only make an already crowded public transportation network, even more crowded.
Any viable solutions, both short term and long term, cannot only entail the built up of more costly infrastructure.
Here are some other alternatives, in addition to the ones already circulated in mainstream discussions, that not only are available right now, but are also potentially much cheaper to implement.
Short term solutions:
Work Remotely:
Coronavirus crisis, allowed all of us to develop, test, and implement many changes in the way we work, communicate, consume, and generally conduct activities remotely.
For a long period, a large number of people worked exclusively remotely, and in many cases, it worked well. Not in all, but in many.
Therefore, with the purpose of removing as many commuters from Athen’s daily traffic jams as possible, the Greek State should try to convince more companies to promote remote work for as many of their employees as possible.
The State here has at least two effective and low-cost ways of doing so.
The carrot, which will provide companies that for example have 50% or more of their staff working remotely on any given working day in a year, with a lower annual tax rate, for example 5% less than would have otherwise been, and if more than 75% of their staff works remotely, the company’s tax rate will be reduce by another 5% compared to the standard tax rate.
The stick, can be on the other hand, for companies that employ at least 100 people in office work, must have at any given working day of a year, at least 50% of their staff on remote work, otherwise their tax rate will increase by 2%.
This kind of support and coerce regime, with the appropriate time lag for preparation, will establish remote work in large cities for good, and will provide companies with incentives to try and institutionalize their operations around remote work.
It will also remove permanently a number of daily commuters from the city’s streets. What’s even more important, is that it requires no additional infrastructure costs, and the necessary monitoring platform for remote work already exists in Greece as it was establish during the coronavirus pandemic.
This is not a viable solution for all kinds of work, but it can be applied to quite many.
In summary: Tax incentives to Companies to extensively adopt remote working. Easy to present, test, and expand, as it only involves legislation and monitoring through existing systems.
The State is expected to lose some tax revenue, but the society as a whole is gaining much more on time, commuting costs, better air quality and potentially road accidents. This proposal applies to companies that have offices and workplaces in major cities, such as Athens in Greece.
Company and supermarket vending must happen at night or very early in the morning.
This is a more complicated solution, but again it requires no infrastructure costs and it has already been tested in Athens during the Olympic games of 2004.
The State must obligate all goods transportation, replenishment, and deliveries to companies and supermarkets to take place between 21:00 PM and 7:00 AM every weekday, except on weekends when the same times changes to 9:00 PM to 9:00 AM.
This will remove a lot of trucks from Athen’s streets during the city’s peak hours of operation, but it will also allow much more quick and efficient supply operations for companies and supermarkets during off-peak hours.
Any additional costs related to late-hour work added compensation should be covered by the State, either by reducing tax burden or by subsidizing part of the additional expenses. Again this is a viable, tested and much less costly alternative that will reduce the number of trucks from city’s road during peak traffic.
Certain very important sectors like health and medical related supplies can obviously be excepted.
Small and limited participants demonstrations cannot lead to road closures anywhere in the city.
The State, with no additional cost, only legislative work, must not allow strikes and demonstrations with fewer than for example 2,000 people to block any parts of the city’s streets from Monday to Friday. For smaller demonstrations, a specific area can be designated where no traffic is affected.
In this way, all workers that are required to commute to their work on a daily basis, and these are millions every day, will not be hindered to do so, by a substantially lower number people. This is a key principle of democracy.
A car free day in Athens, every other Sunday of the week. Public transport to operate with same frequency at 50% less cost.
As an experiment and demonstration of the public transportation concept, every other Sunday of the month will be a car-free day for the center of Athens, meaning no cars are allowed to drive through the center at all, except for taxis. On these days, public transport must operate with higher frequency and more routes, and at lower cost than normal days.
The purpose of the experiment is to show everyone that it is better for all to use public transport and walk to get around the city. On these special days, Athens’ center will be visited by more people, with fewer cars, which might actually be more beneficial for the businesses that are open and serve food and coffee. Take, for example, the esplanades in Barcelona.
Again, a proposal with minimal investment requirements. It only requires legislation and the implementation of changes that are reasonable and technically feasible.
Improve the efficiency of public transportation means.
Extend the hours of public transportation, especially on weekends, and make routes much more frequent.
Improve the interconnectivity between transportation modes. Substantially increase the accuracy of time schedules on all means of public transportation.
Re-arrange bus routes to serve as shuttles around main metro and train stations.
Develop an app that in real time and on a passenger level, will show the time schedules and any changes that will affect the passenger’s chosen route of transport.
These short-term measures require some investments, and serious scheduling and operations of all Athen’s available public transportation means.
By necessity and mostly stating the obvious here, there has to be one and only one State organization that will efficiently handle all transportation means in a combined operation, with the purpose of optimizing the transportation work of the Athens city on a daily basis.
Long-term solutions
As mentioned, mainstream solutions circulated today especially in Athens, Greece, evolve around new subway stations, introducing more buses, and perhaps even constructing new roads. These are called long-term solutions.
We argue that long term solutions need to be of a very different kind, in order to be actually sustainable. We need to make Athens and many other major cities less populated, entirely. The State needs to convince people that leaving Athens and moving to a smaller city or village in the long-term is more attractive and sustainable.
The frictions caused by too many people living in such a limited space are numerous and extremely costly to ignore. Traffic is just one aspect and one side of the bigger problem.
It’s about the health of all people living in Athens, greenhouse gas emissions, huge fuel and parking costs, not to mention the ever-increasing traffic accidents in Athens.
The State can assist through at least three different types of measures: voluntary, supportive, and mandatory.
Voluntary measures – For People
People who leave Athens (or other big cities) to move to the country side can have a reduced tax rate during the first five years they live there. A family with children, should not have to pay any taxes at all during the first five years of their move outside Athens or other big cities.
At the same time, people should get extra support for each child the family has or will have while living outside Athens (and other large cities), until the child turns 18. A good extra support level would be twice the support given to those who stay in Athens currently.
State can also subsidize 50% of bank loan interest on loans for new houses. There can also be varying degrees of subsidy depending on whether the residence is in very small towns or villages.
At the same time, the State must ensure that there are enough schools and kinder-gardens, as well as healthcare at hospitals, in all small towns around the country.
This means, that by trying to solve the traffic problem of Athens, you are at the same time essentially investing and revitalizing the much neglected country side of Greece.
Revitalization comes both in terms of investments and uses of remote and neglected rural properties and buildings, but also by moving young people in areas that are much needed.
Finally, people starting a new business where they have moved, can receive a loan with very low interest from the State to get started.
These kind of voluntary measures are many, and can come in different forms. These are costs to the State, and can present certain inequalities between subsidies for people living in big cities and those living in small ones. But that is the essence of these voluntary measures. To try and equalize the big discrepancy of social and economic opportunities between big cities and neglected rural areas in Greece. To try and make living in rural Greece more appealing than it is now, to equalize economically and socially all parts of the country.
Supportive measures for Companies
The State should support individuals, as proposed above, but companies must also help if they true to their public commitments about the environment, their employees’ health, and all other ESG related topics.
The State can collaborate with companies that move their operations or offices outside of big cities like Athens, especially to small towns, or allow their employees to work full-time remotely so they can actually move out of big cities.
The State’s involvement again revolves around making it more advantageous for companies, through tax policy, to move as much of their operations as possible outside big cities.
Instead of wasting more money on building new roads, subway stations, and parking lots in big cities (which would cost significantly more than building minor infrastructure in the countryside), resources should be invested in providing people who already live in the countryside, and everyone else who will do so in the future, with better healthcare, better roads, better schools, and an overall improvement in infrastructure.
In the real long term, it’s about a development model for the whole country, where real development can happen outside of Athens and the big cities, which are already too crowded to make significant changes.
The State must encourage companies to seriously think about moving out of big cities, through tax policies, various types of grants, but also by investing in infrastructure projects outside major cities.
Mandatory measures – The State itself
The last category of measures the State can implement is mandatory. It involves moving as many as possible of State’s own operations out of big cities.
The State has full authority to relocate many of its operations and activities to smaller towns, where there are perhaps in many cases abandoned and unused government buildings and properties.
The State itself must be decentralized. The idea has been circulated many times in the past, and it would truly contribute to sustainable development for the entire country.
In summary
The State’s voluntary, supportive, and mandatory measures as briefly mentioned above, can affect the policies and the long-term targets across many aspects of the Country’s economic and social life.
Especially for Greece, it is about a development model for many decades to come. A model that does not directly concern Athens, but that will benefit Athens more than ever and at the same time the whole country, and it’s entire population.
All the above proposals can be further developed and presented with data support and more detailed analysis. The purpose of the article was to as briefly as possible present an alternative to the situation we have ended up in today, which is completely unsustainable.
As a society, we can make big changes in the future, and we can start with small but significant steps even today.
The public agenda in Greece (and other countries) must shift towards real problems that require practical solutions.