With over 270 kilometres operational and some 400 kilometres to go, the Egnatia Odos (Egnatia Road) is one of Europes biggest infrastructure projects with a budget of GDR1 trillion. And it is as much a symbol of the future as of the past.

The approximately 12 hours it takes drivers to travel from northwest port city of Igoumenitsa to the northeast town of Kipi (at the border with Turkey ) will shrink to less than seven hours with the Egnatia Odos. This prospect prompted the European Union to back the ambitious project, begun by Greece in the early '90s.

In an effort to speed up construction, Egnatia Odos S.A., a state-owned ( Ministry of Environment, Planning and Public Works ) but privately-structured company, was formed in 1995. Since the company's founding, the EU has provided 60% of the projects funding while more funds have been earmarked in view of the highways planned 2006 completion.

The new Egnatia Odos
Some 5,000 Greek workers are busy giving shape to the 24.5 metres wide, four-lane (two lanes in either direction) highway, whose terrain includes difficult and environmentally fragile spots like the Northern Pindos Range and the Aliakmonas wetlands.

Approximately 300 kilometres are currently under construction. An additional 69 kilometres of the Egnatia Odos are expected to be delivered by the end of the year, while planners hope to have a total of 450 kilometers operational by 2004, before finishing the highway in 2006.

The whole project is divided into three sectors (western, central and eastern), with a construction manager and three international consultant companies overseeing the construction of each. Once complete the highway will have 50 interchanges, 40 kilometres of bridges and 42 kilometres of tunnels. Among the most ambitious structures is the Metsovitikos Bridge, a rock-anchored suspension structure (designed by UK company Ove Arup ).

Apart from the road's value as a speedy East-West corridor, it will offer vital north-south links with its nine "vertical axes", or new roads linking the highway to neighbouring Balkan countries. Real estate values have surged in most spots alongside the Egnatia Odos (eg Alexandroupolis ), while plans for industrial and technological parks in cities, such as Igoumenitsa and Ioannina have already been drafted.

Brown bears vs Egnatia
Yet while stretches of the project are opened to traffic on a daily basis, construction of the Egnatia Odos near Grevena has been put on a hold, as the highway was designed to pass through the endangered Brown Bears habitat. With only 130 to 150 brown bears (Ursus Arctos) remaining in Greece, the planned construction through their Epirus/Western Macedonia habitat was halted by environmentalists' pleas.

Specifically, the European Parliament responded to an appeal by bear-protection NGO Arcturos, by demanding Greece's Ministry of Environment to conduct a study redesigning the road with less impact on the imperiled bears.

Consequently 47 kilometres of the Egnatia Odos are on hold, as planners are considering a GDR4.7 billion alternative, which would improve an already-existing road through the village of Milia and include more tunnels. Funding, though, for this plan B is still uncertain.

Despite some sotto voce political displeasure concerning the project's interruption, environmentalists have a strong argument: Greece is home to about half of Europe's brown bear population, with the Pindos Range constituting one of its only two remaining habitats. Some 50 individuals have survived in Italy and Spain and no more than 10 in France of this proud and reclusive animal which first came to Europe from Western China about 200,000 years ago.

The old Via Egnatia
Along the new road's route, 258 archaeological sites provide a link between past and present. Not only has construction led to the discovery of Paleolithic tools in Epirus and a 2400-1880 BC tomb near Kozani, it has also unearthed ample data about the Roman Via Egnatia road, whose construction began in 145BC.

An extension of the Via Appia - and the first Roman road outside of Italy - the Via Egnatia ran along much of the same path as the Egnatia Odos. And while nowadays its six- to eight-metre width and its stone covering may sound quaint, the Via Egnatia egnatia was a feat in its time.

The primarily military road was named after the man who ordered its construction, Proconsul Gaius Ignatius. The irrigated toll highway was made by applying Roman engineering and ambition to an older network of paths. Via Egnatia grew to span 800 kilometres from Dyrrachium and Appollonia (in todays Albania, where a dig is today underway) to Kipsela (in todays Turkey).

Licenses and papers were required to travel the road and carriages had to be of a certain weight. Many of the Via Egnatia regular checkpoints and milestones correspond with today's evenly-spaced Northern cities, such as Kavala, Edessa and Yianitsa.

The ancient road, whose travellers included St Paul, retained its importance when the Roman Empire shifted to Constantinople. Contemporary planners hope the Egnatia Odos will be of equal significance for Northern Greece.