Repairs have begun on the „Estakada" bridge in Skopje's Gazi Baba municipality - an infrastructure project on a structure that thousands of vehicles cross every day. Work officially started on June 15, and the Faculty of Civil Engineering had previously been hired to assess the condition of the city's bridges.

The „Estakada" isn't just any crossing - it's one of the key traffic links in that part of Skopje, and every closure or rerouting directly affects the movement of hundreds of drivers a day. The reconstruction of a structure like this, when done properly, means safety for years to come; when done in a hurry or only cosmetically, it means a new problem within a few seasons.

And here the citizen has a right to healthy skepticism. Skopje's bridges have for decades been „repaired," „reconstructed," and „assessed," and yet every year one of them ends up in the headlines over cracks or closures. The question isn't whether the work has started - that's good news - but whether serious expertise stands behind it or just another line in the infrastructure budget. The bridge will show it on its own: it will either hold quietly for years, or talk about itself again when it's least needed.