Skopje's Bus 37 Returns with a New Route, but Four Departures and No Weekends: a Line for High Schoolers, Not for a Neighbourhood

Line 37 returns to Skopje's streets on 1 September, with a completely new route. The trial run is already going - since 17 August the bus has run the Karpos 3 - Radisani route, Monday to Friday only.

The president of the Skopje City Council, Dame Dimitrievski, announced that the line activates Slovenija Boulevard for the first time and directly connects Radisani and Butel with all the secondary schools in Karpos and with the shopping centre.

The timetable, for those who will actually use it

Departures from Karpos 3: 06:40, 08:10, 14:10 and 15:40. Departures from Radisani: 07:25, 08:55, 14:55 and 16:25.

The route from Radisani runs along Radisanska and Butelska streets, then the Bosna i Hercegovina and Slovenija boulevards, via the Kacanik road and the service street, the 8 Septemvri and Partizanski Odredi boulevards, ending at Manapo Street. And back the same way.

Four departures and a five-day week

Look at those times again. Six forty, ten past eight, then nothing until two in the afternoon. That is a timetable cut for exactly one thing - secondary school pupils on the first and second shift.

This is not a criticism of the line itself; connecting schools is a real need and it is obviously why the line was brought back precisely now, ten days before the school year. But a line that does not run at weekends and has not a single departure between 08:10 and 14:10 is not public transport for a neighbourhood - it is a school bus with a route number.

For a Radisani resident working in Karpos, this line solves one trip in the morning and none in the afternoon.

What happens next with line 35

The mayor of Butel, Darko Kostovski, asked residents for their views on possibly extending line 35 to Radisani, noting there have been several requests for better links between Butel and the airport and Novo Lisice. The reactions so far are mostly positive.

The City of Skopje confirms there will be no cuts to existing lines in September, and that changes will only be introduced based on analysis of demand and passenger data.

Analysis of passenger data - that is exactly what should be done. The question is whether the same analysis will be applied to the new line's timetable once September shows how many people are actually waiting at the stop at two in the afternoon.