The government over the weekend unveiled the blueprint for a long-overdue modern highway/tollway across the breadth of the northern Crete coast, as the current road network on the large and popular island is deemed as inefficient, overused – especially in the summer months – and among the more dangerous in the country.
The project’s unveiling, in fact, was made by Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis, from the Mitsotakis family’s ancestral hometown of Hania, and attended by several Cabinet members, showing the importance that the new highway entails for the government. Crete is one of the few regions (four prefectures) in the country were Mitsotakis and his center-right New Democracy (ND) party failed to be the leading party in the July 2019 snap election.
The proposed 294-kilometer “closed highway” will run from Kissamos, on western Crete, to Siteia, in the east.
The timetable for construction was given as commencing in the end of 2022 and being completed in early 2026, including 26 tunnels totaling 34 kilometers and 10.8 kilometers of new bridges, of which 23 will exceed 100 meters in length.
