- Heraklion’s Professional Drivers Association (SEEMO) released a blistering statement over ongoing construction delays on the VOAK highway.
- Commercial operators challenged the Infrastructure Minister to drive the Heraklion to Agios Nikolaos route daily for a week to experience the chaos firsthand.
- Transport leaders demand an immediate shift to night work, accelerated crew deployment, and realistic coordination to save the late-summer tourist season.
- Local business groups and trade associations are preparing to explore formal legal remedies if authorities refuse to redesign the project timeline.
Crete’s transport professionals have had enough of the roadworks.
Not the VOAK itself. Not the promise of a safer, modern Northern Road Axis. The problem is the timing, the traffic chaos and the increasingly difficult conditions created by major works being carried out while the island is still deep in its tourist season.
In a strongly worded appeal, professionals are calling on the government and everyone responsible for planning and carrying out roadworks across Crete to rethink the current approach before the remaining weeks of the tourist season are lost to traffic jams.
Their position is straightforward. Crete needs the VOAK. It also needs to keep moving while the VOAK is being built.
September has arrived, but the tourist season is nowhere near finished. Hotels, restaurants, tourism businesses, buses, taxis, rental cars and countless other businesses are still operating at high intensity, while thousands of visitors continue to travel around the island.
Instead, residents, tourists and workers are facing lengthy delays, congestion and uncertainty about how long even relatively ordinary journeys will take.
For professional transport operators, that uncertainty comes with a price tag.
More time stuck in traffic means higher fuel consumption, longer working hours, delayed routes, and unhappy passengers. With operating costs already high, transport professionals argue that they cannot continue to absorb costs caused by poor coordination and roadwork scheduling.
And they have a question for the authorities that is difficult to ignore.
What happens when the tourist season ends?
Will the same crews be working at the same pace in November, December, January and February, when traffic on Crete’s roads is significantly lighter?
Or will the urgency conveniently disappear along with the tourists?
That is precisely why the professionals are demanding better planning and faster execution of the works. They are also calling for night-time construction wherever this is technically possible and safe.
They are not asking for the projects to be abandoned. They are asking for authorities to recognize that Crete’s economic calendar does not neatly fit into the traditional summer months.
The island’s economy remains heavily active from spring through late autumn, and major disruptions during the busiest months have consequences far beyond an inconvenient drive.
The professionals have even issued a challenge to the responsible minister: come to Crete and experience the situation personally.
Their suggested test is simple. Spend a week on the island and make one daily trip from Heraklion to Agios Nikolaos and back.
No official inspection tour. Just the road.
Experience the delays, the uncertainty over arrival times, the pressure on professional drivers, and the frustration of passengers firsthand.
The appeal comes as fuel prices and other operating expenses continue to put pressure on the transport sector. Every additional hour spent crawling through congestion adds to the costs for businesses already operating on tight margins.
The professionals’ argument is therefore not simply about inconvenience.
It is about who pays for badly timed construction.
Their answer is clear: it should not always be the citizen, the visitor or the business owner.
They are now calling for an immediate review of how the works are being carried out, faster deployment of crews, better coordination between the various projects and greater use of night-time working where safety and technical conditions allow.
They are also asking professional and productive organizations across Crete to consider possible institutional and legal action if the situation continues without a meaningful response.
The message is particularly pointed because no one disputes the need for the VOAK.
Crete desperately needs a safer and modern road network. A proper motorway will save lives, shorten journeys and make travel across the island considerably easier.
But building infrastructure for the future should not mean making the present unnecessarily unworkable.
And the professionals have now reduced their complaint to a sentence that requires very little interpretation:
“The joke has gone on long enough.”
The tourist season is not over. Crete is still working, and those responsible for its roads are being asked to remember that.
