After nine years of intermittent works the Mournies junction, together with 1,300 metres of new dual carriageway running towards the city centre, was opened to traffic on Wednesday 27th March. The work has not been entirely completed, as pavements and lighting still remain to be installed on a section of the road.
At the official hand-over by the Crete Development Organisation (OAK) shortly after midday, the body’s CEO Aris Papadogiannis spoke of a “major project for the OAK and a breath of life for the city of Chania”, noting that that the work was restarted under the OAK’s management in 2021 after several years in suspension “which had caused a lot of aggravation to Chania’s residents”. Mr Papadogiannis spoke of “significant and complex problems” encountered during the construction work which, he emphasised, had been overcome with the help of Chania MP Dora Bakogianni.
The Organisation’s former director of transport projects and current director of Technical Services for the Cretan Regional Authority, Giorgos Agapidakis, paid tribute to the OAK’s contribution, noting that in 2021 only 20 per cent of the work had been completed. “The truth, which we must not hide, is that the work took a long time More than 9 years. The work was on the point of collapse, with the contractor having been declared bankrupt three times and replaced.”
Declaring that it was time to concentrate on the positive and leave the negative behind, he praised the contribution of the former mayor of Chania, the late Manolis Skoulakis, in securing funding from central government, and of the Municipality of Chania, the Cretan Regional Authority and “all those who helped to overcome the problems of expropriations, management, traffic, infrastructure networks and more.”
The 1,300-metre stretch of dual carriageway heading north from the junction has two lanes in each direction and includes antiflood measures. The northbound section carries traffic into the city up to the junction with Anagnostou Gogoni street, while southbound traffic enters the system from Zimvrakakidon a little to the south.
Reactions to the new junction
There were a variety of reactions on Haniotika Nea’s social media pages to the opening of the Mournies junction to traffic. While many applauded the news that the road was finally open after such a long time, the fact that some work remains to be done on cable-laying and surfacing the pavements provoked sceptical comment. Others raised the question of why the junction was still a 4-way stop with traffic lights, instead of a roundabout, which would have promoted the freer flow of traffic.
Most to the point was Manolis Z who said: “In any other European country, at this point there would have been a nice roundabout and not traffic lights, which at peak periods will create queues back as far as the KTEL, and the crossroads at Kokkino Metochi [on Agia Marina Street] … but in Greece unfortunately the concept of roundabouts doesn’t seem to be taught to the engineers who are responsible for planning the public highways – Greece in all her glory as usual. Still, it’s good that it has been finished after so many years, even if something is still missing. ….”
(Haniotika Nea, 28/03/24)
In fact, local road engineers are not entirely unfamiliar with roundabouts – there are two on the road between Souda and Chania Airport, each admittedly only a three-way junction. However, a look at the map suggests that even if one had been thought of, there were considerable obstacles at the Mournies site. In order to create a large enough space for a two lane roundabout, it would most probably have been necessary to demolish both the row of commercial buildings containing Maria’s Café on the south-west corner, and the church of Agia Marina on the north-east corner.
Using the junction
Seen from above, the junction is a bewildering pattern of lane markings, stop lines and stripes marking pedestrian crossings, but in practice it seems to work efficiently enough. There were no signs of tailbacks on entering the city at 8.30 on Monday morning, or on heading towards the VOAK an hour later, though things might be different at 10.00 am on a rainy winter’s day. In terms of speeding traffic flows, drivers heading into the city will still encounter the bottleneck of Anapavseos Street at the Chapel of St Luke (the city cemetery), but exiting the city is much easier. From the east side of 1866 Square, Zimvrakakidon is one-way heading south, crossing Anagnostou Gogoni before it joins the new dual carriageway. Having used it several times even before the current opening of the junction we can vouch for it as a trouble-free way of getting out of town.