More than seven months after announcing it would close it, the City of Skopje has finally made a decision on the unofficial pedestrian crossing at Bit-pazar: it stays - but with a marked crossing and a push-button signal. The traffic plan has already been sent to the Interior Ministry and the City is waiting for an opinion.

In those seven months, at that same spot, there was: one failed attempt to put up a fence, a protest by residents of Čair, the City backing down on the fence, and one road accident that injured two pedestrians.

Which means the plan now being drawn up could have been drawn up before the crash. Instead, the location stayed exactly as it was - an illegal crossing over a busy street - for as long as the argument about whether to close it lasted.

A step back, or the public's will

Mayor Orce Gjorgjievski refused to have the decision called a retreat.

"It is not political backtracking to say I would consult the citizens, because in many of them I saw a genuine request that we change and regulate pedestrian movement in a different way, bearing in mind that most of the objections came from older citizens. I am not ashamed and not afraid to take a step back sometimes when it is a matter of the public's will," he said.

The argument has a real basis, and it is the part the opposition did not mention when it accused him of a political retreat. The alternative to the unofficial crossing is the footbridge - closed and neglected for years. Older citizens physically cannot use it. If you close a crossing without opening an alternative, you have solved nothing - you have just moved the problem a few metres sideways.

The thing nobody mentioned

That is the hole in the whole story. For months the debate was whether to close the crossing or mark it, while the question of why the footbridge is closed and derelict got not a single answer.

It is a structure that somebody owns, somebody is obliged to maintain, and somebody closed. If that footbridge worked, the dilemma about the unofficial crossing probably would not exist at all.

Gjorgjievski said the plan is being prepared in agreement with the public utility "Streets and Roads" and the Skopje police, on the basis of analysis and the law. The City adds that it is making sure the new arrangement does not create additional congestion.

Deadline - none

Asked when citizens can expect the signal, the City could not answer. The exact deadline, they say, will be announced once all procedures are complete and the design solution is finished.

Until then, people carry on crossing at the same spot in the same way they did seven months ago - only now with official confirmation that somebody is working on it.