Within a radius of about two kilometers from Scanderbeg Square, in the very heart of the capital – you can find almost everything: almost all the state institutions, business centers, expensive boutiques and the market place with its cheaper range of commodities, outpatient’s clinics, theatres, cinemas, two stadiums, the city quarter that is crammed with coffee shops and bars, almost everything, in short.
You can live a good life in Tirana. Week-ends can be spent outside of the capital, 30 kilometers to the east of the city is Mt. Dajti and 30 kilometers to the west is the Adriatic coastline. Tirana is perhaps the only capital in Europe which provides you with the luxury of being able to reside and walk to work every day. On an average, it would take you from five to twenty five minutes to get to work.
In this age of a sedentary existence, doctors advise a brisk thirty minute walk daily. But the residents of the capital and of other cities and towns and even of the villages in the countryside have been deeply in love with cars for the last twenty years. So passionate has this love affair been, that it is much easier to come across a Mercedes Benz 240 on a country road than a tractor!
Up until 1990 it was prohibited by law for an Albanian to own a private vehicle, and prohibited fruits always have the best flavor. The Albanians are still far from growing tired of this flavor despite the sharp rise of prices on fuel and irrespective of the fact that the experts rank car exhaust as the number one pollutant of the air in Tirana.
There are daily more than 100,000 vehicles on the road in the capital of Albania. Different from other cities of the continent, there is no “rush hour” in Tirana. It is “rush hour” the whole day long. A foreign company which the City Hall of Tirana brought in to monitor Tirana’s traffic flow drew the conclusion that here there is no peak to traffic flow in the mornings and after working hours, but that the flow is constantly the same. This conclusion does not come as a surprise to residents of Tirana. It is just as difficult to park a car in Tirana’s main streets and squares as it is in Manhattan.
At long last, the City Hall has paved the road towards the construction of subterranean parking areas, but this is nothing but an invitation to continue using cars. To see someone peddling along the street on a bike in Tirana is such a rare moment that it is almost a “tourist attraction.”
Sadly, the capital has no respect for the citizen. Vehicles are respected far more. All the reconstruction work in infrastructure has focused on widening streets and not pavements. There are no lanes for bikes. Here, it is the car that reigns supreme. It never crosses anyone’s mind to de-throne this “sovereign” either. Awareness initiatives come fromŮBrussels! “Circulation Week”, an annual initiative introduced by the European Union back in 2003, is an awareness activity that culminated on 22 September this year too with, “The city minus my car.” Tirana was also part of this initiative, but for about fifteen minutes. The main boulevard in the capital was cordoned off and children swarmed happily up and down it on their bikes. So many bikes had never been seen in Tirana and passers-by began taking their mobile phones out videoing the event. There were also activities in other towns of the country. The Minister of Environment chose Shkodra, the only city in the country where the cyclist is still held in respect; perhaps a respect that is waning, but nevertheless it has been there up to now.
In the capital, the main concern of the television commentators and the written media related to these activities on the “Day without Cars” was that there would be traffic jams! A top official or some other VIP spotted walking is headline news in this city. Naturally, such a news item is only a figment of the imagination because all of these individuals only travel anywhere by car.
The awareness activity against using cars has long been forgotten. In this city it is maintained that even the biggest scandal has a lifespan of three days. It is easy to appeal to people not to travel around in cars, but it does not have much of an impact if you don’t have an efficient public transport, if it is dangerous to use a bike, if taxi fares are expensive, if people are not made aware of the colossal damage to everyone from air pollution, if we do not comprehend that this insane fad for cars is fast becoming an obsession, a sick cult.
Tirana is a capital city within which you can walk comfortably to work; go about your daily business, walk to your favorite coffee bar. You save money by leaving your car at home, you can actually do yourself a service by walking; it is healthier. But all this sound advice has a ring of ‘preaching’ about it.
On 22 September next year there will be yet another awareness activity encouraging citizens to leave their cars at home. The only change will be duration time of the activity. This year, all vehicles were evicted from the main boulevard for fifteen minutes, but not to worry, next year it will only be for ten minutes.
One last piece of advice, and this is not part of the ‘preaching.’ If you are in a hurry to reach a destination, don’t go by car and don’t call a taxi because you will only be late. Walk!
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