I observed how things are done in Vienna when traffic regulation changes are made. Traffic engineers stand at intersections for months, measure the flow of vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians and then do what they are trained to do: install or remove traffic lights, change the direction of one-way streets, build a roundabout, add or move a pedestrian crossing... And then everything goes faster , the crowds decrease, everyone is happy.
I don't know what the people in charge of traffic in Belgrade did at the intersection near Ušće, but what they did is ridiculous: first they abolish the traffic lights and make a roundabout, then because of the resulting chaos, they hire traffic officers to replace the traffic lights so that there is no complete congestion, and then they are returning the traffic lights to the roundabout, which will replace traffic lights, without a green light, explained the mayor of Belgrade, Aleksandar Šapić.
This is another in vivo experiment on the citizens of Belgrade. As in the case of almost everything that is done in Belgrade. When the basic condition for getting a job in state institutions is to show unshakable faith in Aleksandar Vučić, then it is wrongly measured once and cut three times, and the citizens pay the price. If the government was changeable, it wouldn't be like that.
Well, in the case of removing and then restoring the traffic lights and turning the intersection near Ušće into a roundabout, the work may have been entrusted to Šapić's partners. And he is irreplaceable, it was seen in the Belgrade elections in December and June, and that after everything he has done to the city he leads.
Anything but this
Experts list several possible solutions for the busy route next to Ušće, which connects new and old Belgrade via the Branko bridge, just not a roundabout with all the traffic lights.
"What we have now is a half-hearted solution and, unfortunately, it seems to me that it is the result of someone's hasty decisions and that the citizens of Belgrade are an experiment in how someone's ideas are put into practice," traffic engineer Ivan Banković told N1.
A much bigger question is whether the progressive experts sat down and calculated what will happen to Belgrade when, at least as announced, on November 1st they close the Old Sava bridge once and for all. If not, it would be better for them, due to the existing intolerable traffic jams in Belgrade, to abandon the removal of one functional bridge over the Sava, through which about 5,5 million vehicles pass annually. What will happen when a part of them goes to the roundabout near Ušće?
But, it is important that the busses are painted in the "Nemanjić" blue color and that the citizens of Belgrade are satisfied on the water.
