Five Motorways Are Being Built at Once, but the Test Falls in October - the Preseka Tunnels

Five motorway sections are under construction simultaneously, and a sixth - Bukojcani-Kicevo - is due to start by the end of September or the beginning of October. Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister Aleksandar Nikoloski says Corridor 8 has never before been built at this pace and that no other country in the region is delivering projects on this scale.

Five construction sites at once is a real figure and worth saying. What is worth more is the second thing in the same statement: the deadlines. Those are verifiable material, unlike the comparison with the region.

For the Gostivar-Kicevo section, the "Straza" bypass, the deadline is the end of 2029. "If I have to give a forecast today, I think it will be met", Nikoloski said, describing it as the hardest - the first motorway in the country being built from both sides at once.

A forecast given in 2026 for a 2029 deadline is three years of a trust question. That does not make the statement untrue - it means there is no way to check it now, and that is exactly what makes it comfortable to say.

The bill comes due faster on Kicevo-Ohrid. The tunnels at Preseka - the longest in the country - are due to open this October, together with the galleries. The whole motorway, according to the announcement, in the first quarter of next year, weather permitting.

That is a deadline measured in weeks and the only one where it will be immediately visible whether it holds. The Kicevo-Ohrid motorway is among the projects with the longest construction history in the country, spanning several governments. If the Preseka tunnels really do open in October, that is a bigger story than any comparison with the region.

For Bukojcani-Kicevo the procedure is under way: the contractor is being selected together with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which is evaluating the bids. There are three bidders, and work is expected to begin at the end of September or the start of October.

Among the next projects Nikoloski named the express roads Kocani-Vinica-Delcevo to the Bulgarian border and Radovis-Strumica-Novo Selo, also to the Bulgarian border. Both are in the design phase - which means asphalt is a long way off, but also that eastern Macedonia is finally appearing on the infrastructure map with something more than an announcement.

The verdict on the pace will arrive on its own. Five construction sites is a picture; an open tunnel is proof. October is close.