Living and commuting in Tirana during the last months has been particularly tough, if not desperate and harrowing, especially for drivers and public transport users. Congested roads are surely not a new phenomenon in chaotic Tirana. However, over the past four months, traffic jams have skyrocketed. One of the main reasons why there is more congestion is due to the local policy interventions, in an attempt to respond to the congested traffic problems.
Impoverished infrastructure and incapable government
As a rapidly growing, developing city, Tirana has to deal with thousand of cars driving through its poorly maintained streets. During the last twenty years, population density has grown fourfold and many informal development projects have seized streets, sidewalks, and public space in general. On the other hand, lack of public transport and a poor transportation system have nourished a car-driven culture. Furthermore, the lack of dedicated bike lanes and the manifold perils of cycling in the city certainly impede a smooth transitioning towards environmentally friendlier modes of transportation.
For years, municipal councils and governments have failed to act on the looming threat of heavy congestion. Mobility initiatives undertaken by the local government have been mostly infantile, lacking careful planning. Some of the initiatives are so ambitions (such as the underground parking projects) that they require huge infrastructural interventions in already consolidated areas. While the government relies heavily on a public–private partnerships, numerous corruption allegations have risen, related to lack of transparency and public consultation, or dubious procurement practices.
Multiple, uncoordinated construction works
The curse on the congested streets of Tirana seems only to get worse with time. And the municipality’s interventions, heavily promoted as effective in alleviating the traffic jams, are undoubtedly causing even more gridlocks. To an unprecedented extent, the city of Tirana has turned into a massive construction site where public works are taking place everywhere, in an apparently non-coordinated way.
So, at the moment, Skënderbeg Square, the central square of the city, is under reconstruction, only two years after its complete makeover. It seems that the square has some kind of spell on it, as each of the political parties coming into power remodels it according to their aesthetic taste. Currently, the square is undergoing some fundamental changes, such as its closure for cars in favor of pedestrian usage and the building of a parking garage. The entire traffic route through the center has been diverted, causing terrible congestion the surrounding streets in the city.
It is unclear why construction works have started at this particular moment in the most central part of the city, when the Local Territorial Plan is still in preparation and other construction works are already taking place in many other parts of the city.
For example, the so-called outer ring road, the largest concentric roads in the city, has been under construction for the last three years. The traffic has been diverted to one of the most crucial intersections at the northern gateway between Kavaja Street and Teodor Keko Street. Moreover, the Selita Bridge, connecting the Gjergj Fishta and Barjam Curri Boulevards, has been under reconstruction for the last three months, blocking the entire traffic coming from Selita, Komuna e Parisit, and Kodra e Diellit neighborhoods.
During the peak hours in the morning (7–9 AM) and evening (4–7 PM), the traffic is so congested in the area between Dinamo Stadium up to Zogu i Zi Square, that it takes the intervention of the road police units, order police units, the “Eagles” (Shqiponjat) police task force, volunteer crossing guards, to make the passage of cars and pedestrians possible. Bus stops are overcrowded and public transport delays are the norm.
Other big construction works are also taking place close to the central square, at the Electrical Substation at Rruga e Barrikadave or close to Mother Theresa Square, where the National Stadium Qemal Stafa is being constructed. All these works, happening all at once, have deteriorated traffic situation in a frightening manner.
Air pollution
The distressing traffic has not only become time-consuming, economically inefficient, and frustrating, but it has also become the major contribution to the air pollution in the city, in a country where according to the World Health Organization air pollution is estimated to be responsible for approximately 1,900 deaths per year.
Public investments are determined mainly by development needs or by imminent problems of a growing population and a handicapped infrastructure. Now that the 2017 general elections in Albania are looming on the horizon, both the central and the local government of Tirana have decided to launch many infrastructural projects with favorable deadlines, so that they can be inaugurated before the elections. Meanwhile, citizens of Tirana continue to live the daily torture of having to use any means of transport, at least until the election time.
As elections near, politicians in Albania has once again chosen to woo voters with public investments, which are badly planned and quite disputable.
