The bridge over Markova Reka at the entrance to Dračevo is being rehabilitated, and residents will have to wait until early September. That is the timeline in the contract between the Public Enterprise for State Roads and the contractor „Sintek Inženering” from the village of Brazda.

The work costs 4,619,800 denars excluding VAT, or around 75,000 euros, funded from the public enterprise's budget. Supervision is carried out by „EOS E.E.” from Skopje.

The work covers the bridge's upper structure. The existing expansion joints, drains, asphalt, railing and pavements are being removed, then a new concrete slab, waterproofing, asphalt, new pavements and a new railing are being installed. During the works traffic is managed with light signals, and vehicles alternate through a single lane.

The head of the state roads enterprise Koce Trajanovski and Kisela Voda mayor Beti Stamenkoska-Trajkoska inspected the site and found that work is proceeding at pace, timed for the summer period when traffic is lighter.

That is a correct calculation. Fewer vehicles in August means fewer people stuck in a single lane. But the same calculation raises the other question: the bridge, as it stood before the works began, was in exceptionally poor condition - and it got to that state while the enterprise was managing traffic across it every single day.

The state roads enterprise says it looks after the maintenance of more than 1,100 bridges on state roads across the entire territory. Expansion joints, asphalt and other fastest-wearing elements need periodic replacement, they explain. Eleven hundred bridges is a figure that on its own explains why maintenance has to be a calendar and not a reaction. By the time a bridge reaches a condition where repair is urgent, it is no longer maintenance - it is rehabilitation, and that always costs more.

Dračevo residents are meanwhile going through traffic chaos also fuelled by the reconstruction of „Boris Trajkovski” boulevard. Two building sites on one route, in the same month. Somebody called that summer scheduling.