After Unfinished Prokop, Unfinished BAS in Block 42 to Become Main Station from January – Station Building to Be Raised Subsequently

It was only after nearly five and a half years from the moment the unfinished Prokop became the main rail station in Belgrade that this rail hub got its station building. Now it is already likely that “traffic history” will repeat for the citizens of Belgrade and everybody else who uses public intercity traffic in the capital city. In January, the new, unfinished Belgrade Bus Station (BAS) will start welcoming passengers, even though, by that time, it will not have one of the most important facilities – the station building.

As the president of the Temporary Organ of the City of Belgrade, Aleksandar Sapic, repeated today, having visited the construction site of the new BAS, he expects all bus traffic in the city to be transferred here in January next year.

– About two months ago, we notified the public that we had finally untied the “Gordian knot” that had been tied for the preceding five years and that we had managed to restart the works on the bus station, which had been stopped and essentially not continued until the summer. It’s all going as planned now and we expect to be able to transfer all bus traffic here in January 2024 – Sapic said.

He added that, slightly over a year before, when he had assumed the position of the mayor, he had said that he would solve the issue of the bus station in the best way possible.

– It took us having a fight with BAS at one point, as we did, so as to be able to reach some kind of a solution. After several months, we did manage to reach a solution. That is why I am extremely happy that we are already now witnessing a future bus station here, which, it is considered, once it’s completed at full capacity, will be second only to the one in Lisbon as the best, most practical and functional bus station in Europe. I don’t just mean the traffic capacity, because it will be available as soon as 2024, but the infrastructural capacity, with the station building and everything that will take another year or two to finish, when the station rail building, which is an integral part of the complex, is completed as well – he said.

Sapic repeated that he expected to visit the place again in January when the first buses are scheduled to set off from there.

When it comes to the BAS company itself, which is a private company, that is, a joint-stock company, both the city and the state will strive to help, but the rationalization and organization, and with that efficiency, depend on the company itself and their competitiveness in the market.

– On the example of Kentkart, that is, by taking over the controller which lost its job, we have showed that we take care of every job, as much as we can. The same way, we will try to find a way with BAS to help save those jobs – Sapic said.

The new station will start serving the passengers without a built central station building. Instead of it, the role of the facility for the sale of tickets and other services, as announced earlier, will be performed by the annex that was built several years ago, that is, the heated corridor between the future BAS in New Belgrade and the New Belgrade Rail Station.

At the new, unfinished intercity bus station in Block 42, in the past years, the station platform and access connections have been built, the structure for the canopies of the future platforms has been set up and the foundation of the future station building has been completed. At this construction site, where the works were activated several years ago, there were no activities until recently, and the official main reason for this was said to be the financing of the further works. The works continued after, slightly more than a year ago, an agreement with BAS was reached, according to which the city was to continue the construction of the station with the obligation of paying to BAS the money previously invested in the construction of the new bus complex.

Grad Beograd

JP Direkcija za građevinsko zemljište i izgradnju Beograda

BAS Beogradska autobuska stanica a.d. Beograd

JKP Zelenilo Beograd

Kentkart SE doo Beograd

City of Belgrade

Belgrade Bus Station

Beogradska autobuska stanica ad Beograd

BAS

Kentkart

Aleksandar Sapic

Lisbon

station building