Bus 35 Extends to Radishani: Butel Gets a Direct Ride to Aerodrom, on Trial for Now

Bus route 35 is being extended to Radishani. Butel mayor Darko Kostovski announced that the procedure is complete and that he has an agreement with Skopje mayor Orce Gjorgjievski and with the director of the public transport company. "In the coming days we will present the new timetable, and within a few days a trial route will start running to the last stop of route 57 in Radishani," Kostovski wrote.

With the new route Butel gains a direct public transport link to the Aerodrom municipality - with no changing lines through the centre. For now it is a trial. If residents use it, Kostovski says, it is expected to become permanent. The rule is simple: if people board, it stays. What exactly counts as "sufficient interest" and how many passengers make the route permanent has not been defined by anyone. Radishani residents will sit an exam without knowing the pass mark.

Kostovski thanked the City of Skopje and the transport company, and also Butel residents for their suggestions. A bus route born out of residents' complaints is the kind of small municipal politics that actually works. The only remaining question is why one bus running a few stops further required an agreement between three institutions and a completed "procedure". If extending a line is this complicated, how complicated is introducing a new one?

The timetable is coming "in the coming days". The people of Radishani will not judge it by a Facebook post, but by the clock at the bus stop.