The three longest-running traffic bottlenecks in Skopje are finally entering the home stretch. Boris Trajkovski Boulevard is 88 percent complete and is meant to open to traffic in 10 days. The Mominski Potok works and the Ljubljanska bridge are in an active construction phase.

The Boris Trajkovski boulevard is the longest-running project - 30 years of waiting. Now, with a 2 million euro investment, one kilometre of road is being widened to serve 100,000 residents from Dračevo, Zelenikovo and Studenčani. Four traffic lanes, pedestrian and cycle paths, a new stormwater drainage system. "After 30 years, finally finishing the boulevard becomes reality," said Mayor Orce Đorđievski.

This is a painful record. Thirty years for one boulevard - longer than the entire history of Macedonian independence. And in the country's capital, on a stretch serving 100,000 people. The question: which company is now going to cash in on the final 12 percent, after previous administrations took a 30-year coffee break?

Mominski Potok is a critical traffic chokepoint in the north of Skopje. The new bridge and intersection will ease traffic towards Nikola Karev Boulevard, Vižbegovo and the city exits. The Ljubljanska-Skupi bridge on the Vardar - another long-running failure - has finally started construction and will link Karpoš, Zlokućani, Vižbegovo and the northern neighbourhoods.

All three projects had been blocked for years over unresolved property issues. Which means expropriation was more politics than legal process. Now that the new city government has put them back in motion, residents should be asking: how much time and how much money was burned on "waiting" instead of "working"? Skopje needs infrastructure that works - not just "nearly done" slogans.