The Bitola municipality has started construction work to install pedestrian traffic lights at the intersection of Dimitar Ilievski-Murat and Shirok Sokak streets, near the "Epinal" hotel. It's part of the city centre's pedestrian zone where there was no regulated crossing until now, which has been causing chaotic traffic interruptions and unsafe situations for pedestrians.

Traffic studies have shown that 50 percent of the daily traffic through this point is transit - meaning vehicles that don't start or end their journey in the centre, but just pass through it. A huge figure for a zone that is nominally pedestrian. The lights will operate year-round except during the summer when schools are on holiday.

The plans also include turning the "Goce Delchev" square - currently used as parking - into a pedestrian zone where vehicles will not be allowed. In the same vein, traffic lights will also be installed at the other pedestrian crossing on Shirok Sokak, near the Stone Bridge.

The question Bitola residents are legitimately asking - why did they wait this long? Shirok Sokak has been the central tourist heart of the city for decades. How many incidents had to happen before the local government decided to accept the obvious solution? That's the story not just of Bitola, but of most Macedonian cities, where urban interventions always arrive a generation later than the need.