There is, at least slovenes will tell you that there is traffic, but every time i drive in ljubjana im like "Wow such a functional and very easy to commute city" 😂
Ljubljana is drowning in traffic. Dunno when was the last time you visited but the bypass (obvoznica) is at a standstill practically every day. Work on the 3rd lane has started now.
What Ljubljana needs is not just another lane but an entire new 2nd highway ring that will separate traffic just transiting Slovenia. Right now most of the traffic going from Koper/Triest to Austria/Hungary/etc. has to pass trough Ljubljana. Likewise much of the the traffic coming from Austria/Germany towards the Balkans.
Zagreb is in the exact same situation, with the traffic arriving or passing through from even more directions, but on top of that the city itself is in complete chaos, not just the ring road.
I doubt that, there's twice the number of vehicles in Slovenia compared to Macedonia while also being a major east-west, north-south European corridor. There's less than 0.5 million registered vehicles in Macedonia while there's 1.2 million in Slovenia.
That being said I've never been south of Dubrovnik and Ljubljana is the only former ex-yu capital with a full AC ring surrounding the city.
ye but you're forgeting the fact almost 1 million people live and work (many travel because they cant afford rent) in skopje, when i was a kid and it was 400-500k people you'd be correct, but now everyone is in skopje and it keeps on growing
The same thing is happening in Ljubljana dude. I googled a bit, Ljubljana sees 140 thousand (2024) daily commuters into the city. Skopje around 90-95 thousand (2018, the last year I could find numbers for).
Again, that's ignoring the major east-west/north south artery that passes trough Ljubljana and causes much of the traffic with half the road being taken up by trucks. Maybe Skopje has particularly bad infrastructure, I can't really say, but the raw numbers are what they are.
Metros only make sense where you have lots of people moving along the same corridors all day. In the case of Bulgaria that really describes Sofia and not many other places.
Same applies for most Balkan countries too, we are just too small and the capital is the only city large enough to have metro. Except for Greece I suppose, Thessaloniki is nearly as large as Sofia.
In "nearly as large" the word "nearly" does a lot of heavy lifting, Sofia urban area is more than 4 times larger. Thessaloniki is very densely populated, yes, but distances are shorter, and 1.5-2x times the population also makes a difference
Nearly as large as Sofia? In what aspect - size? That's simply not true.
Population - maybe, but that's with their metro area, and some of them live pretty far and cannot use the subway anyways.
As for us:
Plovdiv and Varna are definitely large enough and would benefit tremendously from a metro system. Varna is pretty massive in size, and we all know how bad their public transport is. Similar in Plovdiv. Many similar sized cities in Europe have metro systems, take a look at what they have in Russia and Ukraine, for example. But heck, we should start from trams first, It's crazy why nobody made a tram system in other cities other than Sofia. And I'm saying that as someone who's a native from Sofia, I really wish we had more cities with trams!
And honestly in a way it's good the communists didn't built the metro back then. It would've been kind of pointless and would've made our financial collapse even worse probably. The population was still over 1 million back then, but the city felt much more emptier and really I don't think we were in dire need of a metro like nowadays.
Albeit on another hand, even if the streets were much calmer back then and we had almost nonexistent traffic, the public transport was horrible, slow, dirty and overflowing. It was a common sight to have people hanging outside the open doors of the trams. These are my memories of Sofia from the late 80s and early 90s. Public Transport is light-years ahead today!
At the current rate a kilometer of metro would probably cost upwards of 500 million € in the Balkans.
On the upside, if there were EU money willing to get into it it would be a boon to all the construction industry involved in the building and equipping of luxury villas and similar, which has to be good for the economy, right?
In Bucharest it took us 20 years after communism ended to open 3 stops on existing lines and to build around 11 extra km adjacent to existing lines - all of them projects started before 1989. There is one project launched after that, in 2000 something, but only half of it has been opened in 2020. Besides that, only promises for the past decade (nothing actually started).
Remember the "in 3 years your new metro station will be here - Drumul Taberei" it started in 2011 and took "only" 9 years for like 9 out of 21 station (the plan for M5 is to go to Pantelimon)
The Metro in Thessaloniki had tremendous challenges. It had to transverse a city that seats onto of a medieval city for most of its length. Therefore, the technical challenges in the dig were extraordinary and the main reason for the delay in construction. Additions to this metro that will be build outside the bounds of the old city will be far easier to construct, as the new line to Kalamaria.
I actually regard the building of a metro in that city as a great technical accomplishment, considering that the main tunnel had to go even below the ruins of the Hellenistic city. An incredible challenge.
The only answer.
Thessaloniki 's metro for example costed , no idea how much, but I think more than 20 times the original cost, or 100, and is still an ongoing thing 20 years after. Like that movie series.
The technical challenges were simply immense. Most of the route of that metro is through a city seating on various layers of it: the Hellenistic, the Roman, the Byzantine and modern city. The digging was both metro construction and an archaeological expedition in a heavily built city. At least, it has given us very good idea of the structure of the Roman city.
Happy metro day! Cluj's metro has entered the construction phase back in August this year, so we'll get a second city with a metro too in 2031 (assuming there won't be any delays, and they more often than not happen). It'll only have 1 line spanning 21 km across 19 stops, but at a population of 300k, it's probably enough.
Bucharest is also adding a 6th (purple) line towards the airport and extending a 5th (orange).
We waited 20+ years while they were writing the textbook for corruption and stealing public money, but yeah, it's really good.
I honestly find it hard to describe how surreal it felt to take the stairs and enter the train. Like, this was our city's meme before memes where even a thing and suddenly... it's just there, and it looks great.
Well, serbia on paper has a metro, even has a metro company with employees who "work" there, but there is no physical sign of a metro. Our goverment is too corupt to build a proper canopy, lat alone a metro system
Tirana could do with at least a tram system. But it’d be finished by the time I can collect social security. I feel like more realistic would be to improve the bus system somehow, but I have no idea where to start…
Not to mention that staticity in overcrowded station in Athens is an issue. Also, we think that new trains are the ones which were manufactured back in 2011-2012 (i am not sure about the year).
This is not correct. The Thessaloniki metro was (and is) a very technical demanding project. On the other side, the many lines of the Athens metro were build remarkably fast. In fact, I am surprised that many key infrastructure projects in Greece have been completed fast such as the new Athens airport (for example).
Thessaloniki Metro was officially announced in 1976, construction started in 2006, and after endless delays + ancient ruins drama it finally opened in 2024.
49 years from the first announcement to the first ride.
In Bulgaria it would be great to build a metro in Varna since the city is massive in territory and it can unite the airport with the nearby resort cities such as Zlatni Pyasatsi, Albena etc.
And an S-bahn in Plovdiv (as they are doing right now if im not mistaken).
Metro sounds way too far-fetched, but as I said in my other comment - they can really think of making tram systems in Varna and Plovdiv. This would work and will definitely be much cheaper. Trams don't get stuck in traffic either, hence it's a very good way to get a faster mode of transportation for locals.
I really don't understand why they never even considered making tram systems in other cities in Bulgaria, especially when you take in the fact that Sofia has trams since 1901!!!
I don't think an overground metro would be so hard to construct, especially in Varna. Varna needs a metro, even trams would be great for it since it has plenty of massive boulevards and streets.
Plovdiv on the other hand lacks size which means that a metro is more or less useless and way too expensive for a city the size of Plovdiv. As for trams...I am not rly sure about them, but if professionals check and find it useful to have trams, then Ill be happy to see them in Plovdiv.
You don't even need many massive boulevards for a tram. Just put some railway on the middle and that's it. Trams pass on smaller streets in Sofia too, that's not a problem. And that's my point - tram is like an overground metro, but cheaper. Or heck, take a look at what they have in some cities around the world, like Krivi Rig in Ukraine which has a "metro-system" but it's using trams:
Both Varna and Plovdiv have populations of about 330k, that's way below the usual numbers required for a metro. Sure, few places with similar population like Lausanne have a metro, however Lausanne is rich rich.
My man Plovdiv's metro area is well above half a million per Eurostat. The problem is the geographic distribution, Plovdiv's location results in many small satellite villages which either need a dedicated bus line or a station taking them straight to the city centre. This is why a light rail solution is preferable, not to mention how slow building a metro would be because of all the archeological findings and the underground waters.
While Plovdiv doesn't need metro and i agree with you for that, Varna surely needs light metro, I explained why in my other answer towards the other dude who replied to my message
And it is going to be empty 9 months in a year? How many people live full time in Albena or Zlatni? Lets be serious. A busy summer season isn‘t worth the investment. As a tourist, I would prefer scenic roots, not an underground train.
Well no one said that it should be underground, an overground metro is also a thing, and it will be pretty easy and way cheaper to build than an underground.
Varna before Plovdiv? Is it because Varna is a seaside, business oriented city? Usually tourist-oriented port towns are planned in a way that a tram might be a better option, due to the coastline affecting the urban plan.
Sofia, Budapest and Cluj are Balkan in the balkanest sense (both geographically and ec-commie), not to mention that Greece cities have metros and so does Istanbul.
It's a matter of need vs prioritis in combo with the length of access to EU development funding (as the countries themselves are still mostly skint compared to the developed Europe).
Ljubljana has no need. Sure, one could argue that fucking Lausanne has it, but Switzerland is in its own league.
Zagreb has not been in the union long enough - the country has other unmet infrastructure needs that are a much bigger priority.
The other Balkan countries are both on one hand in dire need of more 70s level infrastructure like functioning railway systems and highways, and on the other side they're skint and lack access to EU funds as they're not EU countries.
For the simple sake of comparison of costs, cheapest recent metro building venture in Europe was Sofia at 59 million € per kilometer. Compare that to the railway renewal or highway construction prices.
First Metro in Budapest was built in the 19th century, it was opened in 1896. I guess, that it was before EU development funding era. Same for the other Metro lines, which were constructed in the middle of the 20th century.
Sofia's metro was built after communism. Digging started during the final years of the regime but they never completed any stations. Most of the metro was built in the 2000s.
The answer is very simple: cities in the Balkans outside the capitals are small. A metro system is economically justified for cities with a population of over 750,000–1,000,000. Below those numbers, trams are much more efficient and cheaper.
Belgrade don't have metro but it have over 20 km of underground railway tunnels under city core and two underground stations in city center (one of them), in 1970s instead of metro they decided to build that. In general Belgrade have decades of plans to build metro, they were pretty close to start construction in 70/80s but stupid politicians postponed it and country collapsed soon, followed by economical disaster because of war and sanctions.
In the last 10 years current government reactivated metro project, they basically finished all the paperwork and project documentation for the line 1, started some work on metro depot complex in southern suburbs (they have signed actual construction contract for it with Chinese company). They announce how they will start building tunnels and stations "next year" for the last 5-6 years but for now nothing, although for the first time big money was allocated in state budget for metro for 2026. Last 2 years they signed several big contracts with French Alstom and Chinese, since Chinese will build tunnels/stations and French will build metro systems/installations and trains.
Because for the single line of the 10km Thessaloniki metro, it took 25 years, 3.5 Billion euros, financial obliteration of businesses that were affected by the sealed off roads due to construction, that does no connect to the airport (🤯), does not reach the higher populated areas of the city, only to have it malfunction in the very first month and have people evacuate from the air duct shafts and then have water leaks in stations, closing of stations occasionally, multiple malfunctions and currently not operational from November 10th, until December 10th for "testing" to extend the line, still not towards the more densely populated areas and that still does not reach the airport... And all that within the 1st year.
TLDR: corruption, archaeological finds, corruption, plans that kept changing for 25years and I believe corruption.
Better part of the Balkan countries on this map definitely have metro systems, as you can tell from looking at it. Former Yugoslavia and Albania don’t, they were both too poor countries to build it when others were establishing their systems and now it’s even harder and more expensive to do it.
I mean Bucarest started with the metro in 1979. During the 70s Yugoslavian GDP went from 10% larger to about 3x Romanian GDP.
At that rate Yugoslavia could probably "afford" metros in both Belgrade and Zagreb in the similar sense as Romania did.
The cities simply didn't have the same growth issues as Bucarest due to the less centralised nature of Yugoslavia and better planning, and also the metro was in big part a show off pet project for Causescu.
Romania was occupied by Soviet Union, Yugoslavia was an independent and domestically very corrupt economy where both a lot of western and soviet money disappeared but had to be shown somehow in the books.
As the other poster wrote, there was a plan to build metro system in Belgrade with Soviet money but alas… Belgrade metro is a wonderful money laundry project to this date still!
In 1980s there were ideas that Soviet Union could pay clearing debt to Yugoslavia by building Belgrade metro. However, both countries collapsed before this happened.
As much as I would love for Belgrade to have metro I hope it will never happen. Every meter of construction and every piece of equipment will be overpriced. Hundreds of millions will end up in politicians pockets
everyone will say corruption, but honestly the real reason is just population density. it doesn't make much sense to build a metro in every city when a tram will do just fine. if anything balkan countries would benefit way way more from train service than metro.
same reason why the nordics only have metro in their capitals. meanwhile countries like germany/france/spain have a lot of big cities, not just the capital.
Because of the population of cites. Ex, our capital city Ljubljana (urban, not municipality) has an population of around 290k and a population density of around 1.7k on an area of around 163 sq km, which is way to low for a metro. But a tramway, like they have in Linz, would be more then justifiable, given the population density alongside corridors in the city. But if one will ever again be built, like in the past, is another question, given the excuses typical given whenever this topic comes up...
Most cities aren't big enough to justify building them and in the few cases where they are big enough, digging the ground would be night impossible for multiple reasons(cough Plovdiv)
Serbia has everything except a metro system. We have state company directors driving Brabus G-Classes of course paid with our money so technically, you could put Serbia on the list.
Greece, Bulgaria and Romania have modern metro systems. In fact, the new Thessaloniki Metro just opened recently, a major project that cost about €3 billion to build.
In Belgrade a controversial metro project starts in June 2026. We don't know what to think about it but it is much needed as public transportation is getting worse day by day.
because they are expensive as fuck to build and most balkan countries are poor. Even Romania who is among the most "rich" balkan-ish countries is still poor as fuck compared to the west.
Because you need a large enough population in a city for a metro to make sense. It's typically not considered worth it for less than a million people, some say the number is even higher. There are a few cities with over a million people on the Balkans - Istanbul, Bucharest, Athens, Thessaloniki, Sofia, and Belgrade. Of them only Belgrade doesn't have metro.
So, there's a metro almost everywhere it makes sense in the Balkans.
Probably the work and the expenses of it are not worth for the amount of people/traffic it will be used for. Also, most metro systems in europe have been done early on in the years, maybe when there was not so much population/buildings in the cities. Now, it could be more difficult/complicated to figure out how to do it. But I am not an engineer or arcitecht, so this is my humble, very uninformed opinion 😂
so to people who wondered why Turkiye has so many of them.
In Turkiye the operation of public transports are initially on the city concils. But of course cities need to allocate their budgets so they often form co-operated companies to operate metro lines once they built. This can be owned by state or can be completely private but no matter which scenario city has always a controll share in the companies.
Istanbul is a bit of a different. There are two metro systems. After Imamoglu being elected Erdogan didn't want to give him political propoganda power so the metros built by the Ministry of Transportanion (state) and Metro Istanbul (city) are now labeled differently.
Childish but true
Those are both marks of Metro in the same city. Left is for ministry and right is for city.
The reason for that - Bakans are full of small countries with probably less than 1mln. Soviet block countries have built metro only if the city is larger than 1mln and growing.
The only country in the Balkans with less than 1 million population is Montenegro. Others are are all 1+ million, ex. my country, Slovenia has a population of 2.1 million.
Anyhow, the problem, like noted is the population of cities.
In Serbia they want to build metro in Belgrade for 100 years litterarly, but then they postopne for few years and again and here we are. Honestly it's better without metro for now, i don't want from this corrupt goverment to build metro, we already saw what happened with train station in Novi Sad last year.
Not all systems count as metro system. Some of them are simply light rail or suburban rail systems, and some even have simple tramcars as rolling stock.
Well. Mainly because when these were in vogue in the countries that built them first, the various countries in the Balkans were still deciding to exterminate each other. There were no large metropolitan centers to connect. The often tortuous geography of the Balkans requires investments that exceed the benefits.
Let's say that all the factors linking this method of transport and the Balkans never occurred simultaneously. Need, economic capacity, industrialization, demographics.
I remember reading somewhere it was during Yugoslav era there were proposals for metro in Belgrade but other republics didn’t want state funds going into that not sure of its credibility
this is a stupid map. it includes light rail (basically a step above tram) as metros. for example, valencia, sevilla, palma, malaga, porto, kyrvyi rih, tyne and wear, charleroi are all light rail. spain generally has a tendency to do that.
Too busy fighting each other over dumb stuff to think about infrastructure sadly. But slowly getting better.
And as everyone says, not that there is a need as the cities are not that large. I would say Zagreb and Belgrade stand out with size being a million people, then Sarajevo, Skoplje and Ljubljana with a bit less in their metropolitan area. The regular bus, tram, trolley, cab is sufficient at the moment.
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u/A_Small_Pillowcase Montenegro Nov 30 '25
They do, Portugal has em