Belgrade is facing a traffic collapse. There are more and more cars, and congestion is inevitable in central city areas, which forces many citizens to adjust their daily routines and leave earlier wherever they are headed. We checked what it's like to drive in rush hour on line 95, from Block 45 to Borča 3. This line has 22,15 kilometers and 41 stops
In the last few months one of the biggest "cancer wounds" of the Serbian capital is a huge traffic jam, so there is almost no resident of Belgrade who has not at least once been late where he was going because of the "general madness" on the streets here. There are never any more cars, collapses are everyday, and in the central city area, during the working day, lines of vehicles can stretch for several kilometers.
All that chaos Public city transport vehicles also contribute significantly. That's why even those who use them know that if they want to arrive on time, they have to leave much earlier.
And how do people who travel from one end of the city to another pass? How long does it take them to reach their destination? We wanted to make sure what it looks like when you decide to travel in the middle of rush hour, on one of the longest lines in Belgrade. And which one is better for something like that than bus route 95?
The popular "ninety-five" line is the longest line in the inner city, it is very frequent, it passes over two bridges, it goes from Block 45 in Novoegrad to Borča 3, and it is 22,15 kilometers long. It has 41 stops and the buses that run on that route are always full.
This is also shown by the research presented nine years ago by the city government, which revealed that this line is the busiest in the city.
The results showed that in one day the "ninety-five" transports as many as 84.057 passengers, while the second-ranked "twenty-three" has 76.036.
We have made sure that almost 10 years after this research, the situation has not changed much.
We chose a working day for the trip, and the direction from New Belgrade to Borča. There are not many passengers at the initial stop in Block 45, but obviously due to too much traffic, the schedule has been moved, so the stop is slowly filling up.
"At 'ninety-five' it was as if I had lost half my life"
Those present comment on the almost installed panels with electronic notifications about the number of stations and the time when the vehicles will arrive, and the general impression is that none of the seven or eight buses arrived at the time marked on the board.
ETF student Dejan Petrović says that he uses this line from New Belgrade to the center every day and that the travel time varies from 25 minutes to an hour, depending on the traffic congestion.
When asked how he endures so much driving, he answers: "You arm yourself with patience and that's it." It's not worth getting annoyed. And how much time I spent on this bus - it's like I lost half my life."
After a fifteen-minute wait at the turnpike, one of the buses with number 95, garage number 3087, arrives, and without resting at the turnpike, the driver sets off on a new tour. The bus left Block 45 from the starting station at 16.30:XNUMX p.m. Just when it started to get dark in Belgrade.
When asked how long it takes him on average to get to Borča at this time of day, the driver answers: "From an hour and a half, upwards, depending on many things."
Passengers who enter at the initial stations have the privilege of choosing their seats, and as the ride progresses, the plastic chair becomes a "luxury".
After only a few stops, this bus justifies its image, because there are more and more passengers, and the bus stop in Gandieva Street is already so crowded that citizens have to push through the doors to get in.
Novobeograd's boulevards, although wide, cannot accommodate the huge number of vehicles that pass through them, so the bus, like all the others, tends towards the center.
"Jelice, I'm late, we haven't reached the Branko bridge yet"
And so the ride looks like to the Sava center, and it took him 33 minutes to get there. And from Sava Center follows the more difficult part of the road. People huddled together, bus doors barely open at bus stops. The tense atmosphere is only "broken" by the jazz music that the driver plays on the radio, so that the passengers "don't get killed".
The worst part of the line is without a doubt the one from Milentij Popović to the entrance to Mihajla Pupin Boulevard. Until then, the bus was moving, but at least it was moving, and now it is standing still more than it is moving.
People are nervous, they want to leave early, before the stop at the "Hyatt".
"Come on, open that door more so we can get out, we're going to suffocate," quips one of the passengers. The driver didn't listen at first, but as others started to complain, he opened the door so that the most nervous could get out.
After a long stop, we started to move and somehow turned into the aforementioned boulevard that leads to Branko Bridge.
Pensioner Desanka, who got on the bus in Block 62, took out her phone and called someone: "Jelice, I'm late, we haven't reached Branko bridge yet... Let go, fuck them Šapić".
And time flows. When the bus was about halfway across the bridge, 50 minutes had passed since departure, it was 17.10:XNUMX p.m.
This was followed by the Zeleni venac stop, where a lot of passengers got off, but not a small number of them got on. It is one of the most frequent stops on the entire route, in addition to the one near the Youth Center and the City Institute for Health Protection in Despot Stefana Boulevard, better known as "Bania".
Tunnel, city center, entrance to the former 29. november Street. The bus is moving again. Darkness has fallen greatly.
It seems as if the "crew" of passengers has completely changed, but their number was not significantly less.
Somehow, the bus made its way through one of the most polluted streets in the city, and when it was near Cvijićeva, at the stop across from Lidl, a full hour had already passed since leaving New Belgrade.
And in Borča – cars, many cars
The drastic decrease in passengers starts from the connection to the Pancevac Bridge and the stations that follow it. It is noticeable that while the vehicles in the lane towards Borča and Pancevo are moving, those in the opposite direction towards the city are standing still.
On the other side of the bridge, the same problems. The highway to Borča is full of cars, so combined with the frequent stops due to the many traffic lights, this journey turns into a tiring adventure. Anyone who hasn't been to Borča for a long time can only be amazed at the number of buildings built along the road. And cars, a huge number of cars.
It took this bus 1 hour and 15 minutes to get to the turn for Kotež, and another 15 minutes to get to "Borča razkršće". So, after a full hour and a half of driving, the bus entered the last large settlement on this trip.
And in Borča there are even more vehicles, narrow streets and "long traffic lights", so the bus driver arrived at the last stop on this route only after 1 hour and 42 minutes of driving. With a 15-minute wait at the beginning of the journey - an unreal two hours passed from one end of Belgrade to the other.
About how long it is, the fact that according to these latest rules on typing SMS and sending an electronic ticket, it is not enough to send you just one message, because it is valid for 90 minutes from the moment you send it, but two, since it is the length of this trip was 102 minutes.
We remind you that the Soko train on the route Belgrade - Novi Sad travels in 36 minutes, while the express train covers the same route in less than an hour.
Also, it is worth reminding that the opening of the railway line Belgrade - Subotica has been announced for November 24th, which will be crossed in one hour and 10 minutes, just as long as it took the "ninety-five" to cross from Block 45 to the end of the Pancevac bridge.
And when will they be able to get to Borča faster? Well - when the railway is built. And maybe not even then.
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