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Athens smartening up for 2004 Games
( 2002-05-15 10:32 ) (7 )

Tacky billboards will be torn down, trees planted and cultural sites spotlighted as part of a major makeover aimed at making Athens attractive to visitors by the 2004 Games, the Greek government said on Tuesday.

The Greek capital, notorious for its smog, unruly construction and traffic jams, will shed its dishevelled image and don the trimmings of a city worthy of hosting the world's biggest sports festival, it said.

"After this ambitious Olympic programme the city of Athens and its basin will have a different image," government spokesman Telemachos Hytiris told reporters after a cabinet meeting. "Athens in 2004 will have no relation to the Athens of 2000."

Greece, criticised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for delaying Games preparations due to infighting and bureaucracy, has rolled up its sleeves and speeded up work in recent months.

Hytiris said the revamping programme will target all eyesores, starting with the 20,000 advertising billboards that mar the city.

"Removing billboards is a basic move because they are mostly illegal," he said. "We have already removed 800 from the city centre."

Hytiris said the cabinet agreed to improve the look of access roads to the city, areas surrounding sport venues and archaeological sites.

Some of the interventions will be purely cosmetic and put up for the duration of the Games but others will help improve conditions permanently for the more than four million residents of the sprawling city, he said.

"Traffic and traffic signs will be different during that period, pointing to Olympic areas," he said.

Car parking along Olympic routes will be policed strictly and street cleaning will be intensified. Trees and plants will line the roads and surround the sports areas, he added.

A more permanent legacy will be the restoring of historical buildings, especially in the city centre, connecting archaeological sites with pedestrian streets and improving the city's lighting.

"After completing all these works, the functioning of Athens will be much better, the look of Athens will be much better than the one we have today," Hytiris said.