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Hydra: The Greek island that banned tires
(Image credit: f8grapher/Getty Images)
More and more places around the world are looking to reduce dependence on cars. What lessons can be learned from a place that never allowed them in the first place?
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On my last morning in Hydra, I woke up early and headed down to the water’s edge to watch the weekly deliveries. Anchored on the stone harbor wall was the boat that brought the islanders orders from the mainland. There were many donkeys waiting patiently to board the boat. Groups of three or four board the boat and return a few minutes later with household items, packages and bags of cement in woven baskets strapped on their backs. The donkey drivers—all Dead Island men—took their charges quickly down the roads that took them to the harbor and out of sight.
Hydra’s ancient reliance on donkeys for transportation stems from a 1950s presidential decree intended to preserve the Greek island’s architecture and character. The law includes that wheeled vehicles – cars, motorcycles and bicycles – cannot be used there. Because the city is built on steep, amphitheater-like hills that rise from horseshoeed harbors, donkeys are the only means of transportation up the steep steps and narrow roads to the homes of many residents.
Currently, municipalities around the world are looking for ways to reduce reliance on private cars and even ban them from certain parts of the city. In fact, the borough of London where I live recently introduced a “low-traffic neighborhood,” a tactic to restrict traffic by using number plate recognition cameras so that only residents can drive there. So, at the end of an island-hopping holiday through the Greek islands, I was curious to see what a place that never allowed cars was like.
Donkeys are the only means of transporting the goods up and down the hills of the city (Credit: Molly Daily)
At first impressions, car-free island life was exciting. In other towns in the Greek islands, I regularly pressed on to unpaved streets without walls to let mopeds pass. In Hydra, by contrast, I could wander at my own pace, passing pink bougainvillea past whitewashed walls, lemon and pomegranate trees in gardens, and red-roofed buildings in elegant squares.
An exception to the rule
Despite the presidential decree, visitors to the island may see a few vehicles, including the occasional city garbage truck. And although it is forbidden for adults, bicycles are allowed for children up to 12 years old – but only in the winter months and not in the tourist-heavy summer season.
It was also surprisingly quiet; There are none of the terrible breaks or roaring engines in other towns and cities. Occasionally I heard the braying of donkeys or the ringing of church bells, but silence reigned.
The city felt overwhelmingly crowded. Walking down the narrow streets and alleyways to look out over the harbor, I often see friends and neighbors in groups greeting each other, chatting and talking in the middle of the street. One evening, some kids ran past my table as I was drinking beer by the harbor, their parents blowing balloons without worrying about the traffic. Even the countless stray cats known throughout the Greek islands seemed unusually relaxed – often lounging lazily between the streets.
I am not the first outsider to be fascinated by Hydra, with its long history of tourism and attraction of the bohemian crowd. Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen bought a house here in the 1960s and wrote extensively about Birds on a Wire during one stay. Dina Adamopoulou, who works at the Hydra Historical Archives, tells me that many painters have also visited, including Picasso, Chagall and countless Greek artists.
Hydra is known for its peace and quiet, which has long attracted tourists (Credit: Anton Petrus/Getty Images)
For tourists like me, the fact that Hydra is car-free makes it convenient to visit. But what about the roughly 3,000 people who live here? How does space work in the modern world without wheeled transportation?
“We get fires all the time,” said Kelsey Edwards, an Englishwoman who has lived in Hydra for more than 20 years and runs HydraDyct, a local information and resources website. “Every summer, fire planes have to come in from the mainland and dump water.” Edwards explained that most of the island is inaccessible due to a lack of roads, so local volunteer firefighting teams cannot put out fires on their own. Even when the fire broke out near Hydra, the only population center, “everyone had to run and fetch water to put out the fire.”
Fire is not the only time a lack of vehicles is a hindrance. “We can’t just call. [emergency services] And get an ambulance,” Edwards continued. When people have emergency medical conditions, it can be difficult to get to a small medical center in town, especially for those living high up in the hills. They have to go down on a stretcher or on the back of a donkey to see medical professionals, which Edwards said feels disrespectful.
The Hydra car ban came about through a 1950s presidential decree to preserve the island’s architecture and character (Credit: FreeArtist/Getty Images)
I spoke to my hotel manager, Rebecca Eptakili, who has lived in Hydra for the past 38 years. “My husband is a carpenter,” she said. “He accidentally cut his fingers one night at work a few years ago.” The local medical center was not equipped for such a serious injury and a hospital helicopter could not be flown from Athens after dark. So Eptakili’s husband had to wait for a sea taxi to take the 30 minutes to his place on the mainland and then take another 1.5 hour taxi to the capital.
Besides the dangers, there are many daily problems that come with living in areas where vehicles are not allowed. Edwards noted that hauling the few household wastes that the city’s garbage truck can reach is a headache. Delivering things is also a pain, and the cost of shipping construction materials is prohibitive. Meanwhile, Heptakili says that the weak people who live high up in the city are often alone; It’s not easy for wheelchair users to get both.
Still, on balance, Edwards thinks most hydrates will stick to their current state if pushed. “You just have to tell the local people: let’s take you, let’s put you on the spats [a nearby island] Where one cannot walk down the street or turn a corner without being pushed by annoying scooters and motorbikes and quad bikes and breathe in the air that smells of gasoline and think, ‘What are we doing here? ‘ And they go: ‘No, no, we don’t want that!’
Handcarts are another popular mode of transportation on the island (Credit: Molly Daily)
The lack of cars is in many ways a big driver of the island’s economy. Hydra is only about 90 minutes by boat from the bustling sprawl of Athens, but it feels like a world away. Tourists actually come because it is so peaceful. According to Edwards, Hydra is richer than any of the other islands in the Saronic Islands. This is, at least in part, because outsiders love how quiet they are.
By never allowing motorized vehicles, Hydra avoids many of the challenges faced by other small islands in the country. Kosmas Anagnostopoulos, founder Civnet, a sustainable transport network, told me about the various problems that vehicles introduce on the small Greek islands. “You have a lot of serious accidents on the islands, especially the tourist islands like Mykonos, Santorini, Paros and Naxos,” which mainly involve tourists who don’t understand the local road networks.
Building parking lots to accommodate all the vehicles is also difficult on the Greek islands because of the country’s ancient history. Anagnostopoulos explains that councils struggle to build underground parking because there is a high risk of digging up archaeological remains, which prevents further work.
I’ve seen how crowded they can get when I’ve traveled to other islands – and I’ve traveled in low season. In the summer, when tourists greatly outnumber the permanent population, cars and scooters push the infrastructure to its limits, Anagnostopoulos said.
Visiting Hydra feels like stepping back in time (Credit: Skye Armstrong/Getty Images)
Mimicking Hydra and going vehicle-free may not be a realistic option for other islands of similar size. However, Anagnostopoulos said several islands are being used as testbeds to test ways to reduce reliance on private vehicles.
The island of Kos has invested heavily in cycle routes, while Aegina bans cars from port at night; And in Tinos, the municipality is working on a scheme with battery-powered tuk-tuks. Some islands have also partnered with transport companies. For example, Volkswagen plans to provide shared electric car and bus transportation on the island of Astypalaia. That said, Cosmas says many islands simply don’t have the money to implement bold transportation plans.
On my previous visit to Hydra, I headed west out of town on a cobblestone “path” hugging the beach. Finally he settled into a quiet track, the pine incense lingered in the air and the only sound was the pleasant sound of cicadas and sea swishes. With no cars in sight and little sign of progress, it was like stepping back in time with nothing but my feet to transport me.
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