Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today was held a Debate on traffic solutions in the central city area, which the Municipality of Shtip organized in order to encourage finding smart traffic solutions for our city. Today’s debate was also attended by representatives of the of Municipality of Shtip and PE “Stipion 2011” besides the Mayor of Municipality of Shtip and also representatives of the following institutions, organizations and associations: SVR Shtip, AMD Shtip, Association of drivers Shtip, Association of taxi drivers in Shtip, Sector for traffic operations of the Ministry of interior, University of “Goce Delchev” Shtip, NGOs, media, residents of the urban communities in Shtip which are affected by the problems caused by the traffic jam Delchev University. Prof.PhD Verica Danchevska from the Traffic and transport department at the University of “St.Kliment Ohridski” in Bitola also attended this debate.

At the debate the participants had the opportunity to discuss potential and smart traffic solutions and the Mayor of Municipality Shtip, Blagoj Bochvarski as well as representatives from PE “Stipion 2011” offered a draft decision. According to the draft decision, the traffic on the one-way streets “Vasil Glavinov” and “Mihajlo Apostolski” to be in both directions, and the existing parking lots to be moved on the sidewalks and new console sidewalks to be built on the river of Otinja, which also provide a place for pedestrians as participants in the traffic.

The debate included representatives of NGOs, who urged to implement traffic standards in order not to forget the needs of persons with disabilities.

Prof.PhD Dragica Trajcheva from the department for traffic and transport at the Technical Faculty at the University of “St.Kliment Ohridski” in Bitola welcomed the efforts of the Municipality of Shtip for the organization of today’s debate. Professor Trajcheva stressed out that besides the precise traffic solutions, it is especially important to build and maintain a traffic culture with all the traffic participants. Professor Trajcheva said that the traffic is a dynamic process for which there is no constant solution which absolutely would be satisfactory but that the proper organization and a clear goal is possible to reach solutions to the problems.

The members of the Council for traffic safety, taxi drivers and citizens point out to the problematic points in the traffic in the central city area for them.

The debate ended on a positive note, with the commitment of all those present to further participate and give contributions to other gatherings, debates of similar character.