On Friday, April 5, the Limassol Municipality announced that the main shopping street of the city will undergo major changes.
In particular, from the end of 2025 Anexartisias will turn into a one-way road.
According to the mayor's office, preparations for the full implementation of the innovations will take from 12 to 18 months. In the "pilot phase", traffic on Anexartícias will be carried out for six months only towards the sea and six months only towards the city center. Then the municipality will make a final decision on the direction of the road, which will be preceded by a complete ban on vehicular traffic on the street, the organization of pedestrian zones and bicycle lanes.
It should be noted that this initiative has opponents. So the representative of the DIKO party Christos Demetriou, who owns a store on Anexartisias, drew an analogy with Makarios Street in Nicosia. He pointed to the example of a "poorly equipped pedestrian street".
Converting Anexartisias into a pedestrian street will destroy store owners and commercial activity in this area of Limassol, Demetriou stressed.
However, Limassol Mayor Nicos Nicolaides disagreed with him, stressing that the municipality fully supports the citizens of the city, who previously voted for a complete ban on automobile traffic on Anexartisias.
Recall, Limassol City Hall has developed a plan to modernize the historic city center and reduce traffic flow on its streets.
One of the ideas is to make the main shopping street Anexartisias pedestrian. This initiative is not shared by the owners of stores and cafes located on the street. Moreover, they are opposed to such an idea. As an alternative, the store owners suggested making the traffic one-way - from Pentadromos to Sea Road, widening the sidewalks and landscaping them. But, as we can see, the opinions of ordinary citizens turned out to be more substantial.