The 2004 Olympics in Athens burdened the city with underutilized venues and deep debt. But the event also vastly improved pedestrian and public transportation.
"Yet as urban scholars begin to measure the legacy of Athens' Olympics, if they look only at the costly and visible sports venues, they may miss some more mundane, pedestrian things with more lasting significance. Like pedestrians. And subways.
The Olympics showered money and imposed deadlines on long-languishing projects including new subway lines, a tram and suburban rail. A network of pedestrian-only streets in central Athens included removing autos from several busy arteries to create a broad pedestrian way linking key archaeological sites."
This piece looks at this transit legacy of the games and suggests that the expense of the 2004 games was not all a waste.
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