SUMP (Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans) is a European initiative whose stated goal is to create a comprehensive traffic plan that is not based on building infrastructure for cars as is the case today, but on encouraging, through various urban and functional measures, the movement of people in sustainable ways and improving their quality of life.
The biggest mistake of SUMPs is the wrong priorities in their goals and in particular the downplaying of importance of sidewalks and of safe and sufficient pedestrian spaces. In a country without sidewalks, this should be the first priority. Without proper sidewalks, neither public transit can be attractive, because every movement with public transit has usually a pedestrian movement part, nor can cycling compete with cars, because bicycle paths are turned into sidewalks.
The first thing an administration that is interested in doing so should do is to correct the legislation that has left the country without sidewalks, so that proper and functional sidewalks be created. What would normally do if he had this intention would be to force anyone who builds roads (in urban and suburban areas at least) to build a proper sidewalk. It is an elementary measure to protect human life from the dangers of motor traffic, analogous to the "polluter must pay" principle (the cost of decontamination). That is, whoever creates the risk (with the construction of the road) should be responsible for the (at least partial) removal of this risk.
In Greece, on the contrary, where the administration actually intents to the domination of cars by all means and in every possible way the disappearance or minimization of pedestrian traffic, the one who builds roads has no obligation to build a sidewalk. The one who has an obligation to build a sidewalk is the owner of the plot next to the road and it is remarkable that there are construction standards for sidewalks in the buildings construction code. In other words, while the sidewalk is legally a public space, the administration treats it an extention of the building, as a buffer zone so that the building does not come into direct contact with the motor traffic, and it is left practically to the taste and interest of each owner to shape it. It is assumed that there is an (unfulfilled in most cases) perspective, taht these pieces create a corridor that will be something that can function as a space where pedestrians can actually walk. In practice, however, because each owner's tastes and interests are different and because there is lax regulations enforcment, this almost never happens. And so this theoretical corridor is usually interrupted by plantings, parking lots, garage entrances, platforms, various constructions or completely unformed sections (especially next to unbuilt plots).
The same goes for the cases where there is a mandatory uncovered space in front of the buildings (lawns), the administration allows them to be turned into parking lots, instead of being used as a priority for the safe movement of pedestrians. The sidewalk is often integrated with this space, which also becomes a parking lot, so the pedestrian is forced to move between cars, or often on the road pavement. The administration has allowed these areas to be located in a legally gray zone, so that the law of the jungle can be applied here as well and the strongest, ie cars and motorcycles, can prevail.
Even the legislation for the disabled and generally disabled people (parents with wheelchairs, the elderly, etc.) is based on the assumption that a sidewalk 70 cm wide is suitable for them (52907/28.12.2009 decision YPEKA - FEK 2621B/2009), when even a small child can understand that on such a narrow sidewalk it is not even possible for two able bodied persons to cross, let alone parents with children or other vulnerable pedestrians.
So instead of fixing the causes for the creation of unsuitable sidewalks, the central administration (ie the government) forced the municipalities to draw up programs with goals that the policy, which it implements, violates. While the SUMPs are supposed to have the goal of "reducing the traffic of cars, mainly for private use" (law 4787/2021 article 3 par.1e) it has a program of construction of new highways, even urban ones (Thessaloniki ring road, Kymi avenue, new highways of Hymettus etc). While the SUMPs are supposed to have the goal of "strengthening public transport" (law 4787/2021 article 3 par.1a), the government implements the covid measures to avoid overcrowding, not by increasing the capacity of buses, while serving this purpose, but with police measures and with a recommendation for car use, which has resulted to the eruption of car sales. Even the few buses that were procured, to make up for the reduction in system capacity due to the removal of space around the drivers (for hygienic reasons), are used or rented and many have only two doors that become practically one (because the front one is closed) so that the supposed health purpose is not served either.
The presentation of successful cases from other countries is used to ignore the main causes for the tragic economic, ecological and humanitarian situation the urban and traffic planning is in Greece. The selection of municipalities with more than 30,000 inhabitants as the implementation body for the fixing of the long-term failures of this planning is supposed to be an attempt to transfer these successful cases from countries where municipalities may have different means, responsibilities and administrative functions than in Greece. The municipalities in Greece do not always administratively identical with the urban center where SUMP is supposed to try to impose the principles of sustainable mobility and the most typical example of this is the case of large urban complexes. In Athens in particular, the split of SUMP in municipalities hides "under the rug" and prevents the emergence and confrontation of the biggest mistake in traffic and urban planning, ie the constant effort for at least the last 50 years of the state to expand the city causing urban sprawl. Fortunately, due to incompetence and corruption, they were unable to complete the disaster, but this effort has caused considerable damage. A number of functions have gone from the city center to the outskirts increasing the length and time of travel: universities in the beginning, then courts, ministries and more recently the opera and the national library have left areas with adequate pubpic transit service and went to areas beter served by proprietary motor vehicles. Large highways, which destroyed rivers, shores and other landmarks (the turning unique classical marathon race trail into a motorway is the most extreme and sacrilegious example) were created to move faster and more cars and public transport was downgraded semantically and functionally to an auxiliary medium destied to aleviate traffic from the streets so that the rest can move more comfortably by car, which has been given the leading role to. The other aspect of this policy, which the SUMPs can not change (because of the way they are planned), is the desertification of the city center. The large number of buildings and shops that remain closed and deserted or under-operated there, in addition to the problems they create with the degradation of central areas (crime, energy inefficiency, etc.), constitute in fact a huge lost income that could these places naturally create, because of the radial public transport system (this is another explanation for anyone who still wonders how this country went bankrupt). The fact that a few municipalities in the region may have taken for their own reasons some successful initiatives to promote sustainable mobility in their area an included then into their SUMP, is the exception that confirms the rule.
In practice, these programs without secured funding and with measures without study and hastily coordinated are wishfull thinking without any guarantee or hope of successful implementation. Many of the schemes depend on other actors, especially in the PT sector, which is crucial for sustainable mobility, where, as a rule, various non-municipal bodies (OASA, OASTH, KTEL, OSE i.e. public transit companies) are on charge. Thus, sidewalk measures, which are more complex and without proper legislation, are doomed in advance not to be implemented (to the extent, at least that is required to bring about a noticeable change in pedestrian traffic conditions) and ultimately the only ones that will be implemented are parking lots and chargers for electric cars, which are not sustainable mobility. So these are fake programs, a hoax that ultimately aims to promote electric cars i.e. cars (as all cars are expected to be in a few years), under the guise of promoting sustainable mobility.
The EU, which was the original promoter of the SUMPs, once again applies the hypocritical tactic of setting the right goals and then helping the states to violate them and to cover in practice inhumane policies by proclaiming humanitarian principles. Thus it shifts its responsibilities for these policies to the Greek state, which allows the violation of the European constitution, the central administration shifts the responsibility to the municipalities, which do not have the capacity and they are trapped in local political expediencies, and the ultimate recipient of responsibility is, of course, the citizen accused of lacking "individual responsibility", of "sharing benefits" with fraudsters, etc. (such accusations are often used in Greek politics to alleviate the responsibility of politicians), while all others, whom he naively believes and chooses, consider that they have fulfilled their duty to coordinate, plan and protect basic constitutional and human rights - in this case the possibility of the free and safe movement of EVERYONE, especially as pedestrians.
Athens SUMP is a typical example of all these weaknesses of SUMPs, although this municipality has at its dispoal, because of its size, the most complete services. Sloppiness and unscientificity are pervasive throughout this program. As an example, the percentage of sidewalks with a width of less than 1.5m, the number of crossings with appropriate support facilities for the disabled, and the number of stops with sufficient comfort characteristics have not been estimated, while there are goals to reduce these percentages. One wonders how it is possible to estimate the reduction of a size when one does not even know the current situation, let alone to determine the appropriate actions, their cost and to set a timetable. The figures, wherever exist estimates of the current situation (e.g. percentage of pedestrian or car travel), do not refer to the studies and the methodology upon which are based, so that there is comparability with the revisions and progress checks provided by the relevant law 4787/2021. Of course in Greece such laws, which aim to impress and mislead the public, usually change along the way or are adapted through executive decrees and decisions, in order to be inactivated. The program is indeed full of sophisticated measures that have little chance of implementation or have little to do with sustainable mobility (eg 2.1, 2.2, 2.7). Its goals under these conditions seem unworkable, although they are minimalist and insufficient to promote sustainable mobility to the extent necessary to substantially improve living conditions, but also fulfill the requirements of the country's contribution to preventing climate change. For example, it provides for a reduction in car use only from 30% to 25% (if car sharing is included) after 10 years, while for the use of buses it does not even provide for an increase. The municipality is expecting actions from other entities (bus company, traffic police, etc.) while it does not take care to eliminate the destruction that it creates itself by the way its services operate: the garbage bins on the street corners and with the destruction of sidewalks, the billboards at the stops buses that enter the sidewalk vertically and impede pedestrian movement, poles that he places on the sidewalk or allows others to be placed in inappropriate places, restaurants and cafes tables that are placed without clearing their boundaries and in a way that violates even the regulations provisions that itself sets, etc. They do not implement policies that have virtually no cost and expects from others costly projects, though the SUMP is supposed not to focus on infrastructure but precisely on such actions that require a different concept and mentality for the function of the city.
In the
greek section)there is a more thorough and detailed examination of the program by proposed scheme