{"id":2485,"date":"2007-11-18T18:01:12","date_gmt":"2007-11-18T22:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=2485"},"modified":"2007-11-18T21:52:19","modified_gmt":"2007-11-19T01:52:19","slug":"greek-pedestrians-take-direct-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/18\/greek-pedestrians-take-direct-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Greek pedestrians take direct action"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/graphics8.nytimes.com\/images\/2007\/11\/09\/world\/09athens.600.jpg\" height=\"297\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We think there&#8217;s a lot to do to make Toronto more pedestrian-friendly, but a recent article in the <em>New York Times<\/em> about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/11\/09\/world\/europe\/09athens.html?_r=1&amp;oref=slogin\">pedestrian problems in Athens<\/a> (brought to my attention by a citizen who came to the Toronto Pedestrian Committee meeting last week) certainly provides some perspective.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Step on a sidewalk or try crossing any street here, and chances are you&#8217;ll instantly feel like the prey of a safari hunt,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Vassilis Theodorou of the Hellenic Association of Road Traffic Victim Support. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is the only place in Europe where the golden traffic rule &#8212; that pedestrians have the unconditional right of way &#8212; is so brazenly disrespected.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>In Athens alone, swarms of scooters race down crowded sidewalks. Pedestrians struggle to circumnavigate construction debris, torn-up pavement and mounds of refuse. The greatest impediment, however, is the fleet of vehicles that each day mount the city&#8217;s approximately 1,200 miles of tree-lined sidewalks or other walkways to park.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Not surprisingly, Athenian pedestrians are indulging in more militant direct action to assert their rights.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In the last year alone, the most innovative display of activism has sprung from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.streetpanthers.gr\/\">Streetpanthers<\/a>, a band of thirtysomethings who under cover of night prowl the streets of Athens slapping the vehicles of egregious parking violators with Day-Glo orange stickers depicting a donkey in a car above the message, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I park wherever I want.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The article also discusses other intriguing ways of taking direct action to deal with cars parked on sidewalks, including &#8220;car-vaulting,&#8221; in which rather than stepping dangerously out onto the street to get around a car parked on the sidewalk, you go over it.<\/p>\n<p>While we often compare Toronto&#8217;s pedestrian-friendliness unfavourably with European cities, we rarely encounter this problem of cars parked completely on the sidewalk, which I believe happens elsewhere in Europe too (car-vaulting was apparently invented in Germany, presumably reflecting a need).<\/p>\n<p><em>photo by Yannis Kontos\/New York Times\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We think there&#8217;s a lot to do to make Toronto more pedestrian-friendly, but a recent article in the New York Times about pedestrian problems in Athens (brought to my attention by a citizen who came to the Toronto Pedestrian Committee meeting last week) certainly provides some perspective. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Step on a sidewalk or try crossing any<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/11\/18\/greek-pedestrians-take-direct-action\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;Greek pedestrians take direct action&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4006,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3285,7278,1128,483,7274,1228,21,7276,1245,19,727,7275,7277],"class_list":["post-2485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-walking","tag-athens","tag-car-vaulting","tag-europe","tag-germany","tag-hellenic-association-of-road-traffic-victim-support","tag-new-york-times","tag-other-cities","tag-streetpanthers","tag-the-new-york-times","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-pedestrian-committee","tag-vassilis-theodorou","tag-yannis-kontosnew-york-times"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - 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