The diggers moved into Keramidnica: a boulevard waiting since 1965 finally breaks through - but only halfway

The diggers have moved into Keramidnica. The City of Skopje has begun demolishing some of the houses along the route where a boulevard is to be cut through and linked to the "General Mihajlo Apostolski" bridge in Aerodrom. The deadline for families whose properties were covered by the completed expropriation to move out expired on 3 September - the demolition started the next day.

The project is a continuation of ASNOM Boulevard and is meant to connect Aerodrom and Gazi Baba. By the City's own calculations, the trip from Lisiče to the Courthouse will take 5 minutes by car, 10 by bus, 18 by bicycle and 35 on foot - a saving of up to 20 minutes for residents of the three municipalities.

The bridge that became a joke

This road has existed in Skopje's planning documents since 1965. Sixty-one years. The project moved under Petre Šilegov, when the bridge was built. When Danela Arsovska took office everything stopped, and she said the bridge would be good for fishing, because property rights along the route through Keramidnica had not been settled.

That was the moment an infrastructure project in the capital officially acquired a nickname. The bridge stood built and closed while the mayor made jokes about her own city. Now mayor Orce Gjorgjievski says that with the relocation deadline passed, the conditions exist to move on to the key step.

Half a job

The breakthrough will only be partial. The branch meant to come out behind the "East Gate" shopping centre is a problem because of unresolved expropriation and a large number of court cases still running. Gjorgjievski claims he will finish the negotiations before his term ends. The "General Mihajlo Apostolski" bridge itself, incidentally, is still not open to traffic - despite the announcements.

So: a bridge nobody uses, a boulevard cut halfway through, and court cases that will decide the rest. Plus families who left their homes last week. They have been paid, at least according to the City - "all cases where expropriation was resolved have been paid out".

The question left is not whether the boulevard will be useful. It will be. The question is why a city needs six decades to get from an idea to a digger, and how many mayoral terms it takes to cut through two and a half kilometres of street. Every new mayor inherits the predecessor's unfinished work and leaves the next one unfinished. Only the houses in Keramidnica are already gone.