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is the pyramid designed by enver hoxha s daughter to be a mausoleum for enver hoxha despite arguments about the importance of the ugliness the pyramid is going to be demolished soon because it is derelict and anyway pyramids are ill fated for albania the period immediately after the end of the communist dictatorship was not a golden age of urban planning either due to the total lack of respect for public property abitz 2006 p 67 migrants from rural districts occupied areas in the periphery while in the centre the original residents extended their properties to the space between buildings public spaces were occupied by informal structures for business most notoriously in rinia park a blatant and illegal horrific eyesore in the middle of the city lucas 2002 p 238 and in the margins of the lana a small mountain stream crossing the city centre this area has been cleaned up and landscaped the picture of the left is from the monuments for late capitalism website where you can learn why it took 10 years before the last house at the lana was demolished the picture on the right is the lana in 2015 there are still some places where the drab landscape and the decaying structures make walking an uncomfortable experience the old apartment blocks from the communist era also tend to be in bad condition although not many are as bad as the one below the buildings look in better conditions than they really are because their frontages have bright colours following a painting campaign led by edi rama a painter who had had held more exhibitions than political offices by the time he became mayor in 2000 and is now the prime minister of albania there are many projects for exciting new buildings in tirana but the construction frenzy has side effects the new towers popping up everywhere are starting to spoil the visual landscape as they replace older smaller buildings or occupy open spaces even in the main square some say this square is in catastrophic status and should be changed by building as many towers as possible in there and by letting them be as tall as possible see below from here and here let s hope tirana does not become another grand scale pedestrian unfriendly futuristic capital city like brasilia astana naypyidaw and putrajaya references abitz j 2006 post socialist city development in tirana phd dissertation roskilde university lucas p 2002 rumpalla rummaging through albania xlibris philadelphia leave a comment filed under uncategorized may 21 2015 7 55 pm tirana 4 the spatial and social dimensions of walking some cities have most of the spatial and social pre conditions to be walkable tirana is one of them tirana s centre is densely populated and socio economically diverse the middle cases have not moved to the suburbs due to the lack of infrastructure and the poor have not been pushed out yet because they bought their former state owned homes at a nominal cost pojani 2011 p 100 there is also a high density of businesses of all types the most common of which seem to be betting shops the boulevards radiating from the central square have recently been lined with trees and had their pavements widened sometimes at the expense of the demolition of homes the main transversal boulevard will be extended and occupy the area of the dismantled railway line open street map social aspects are important a popular past time in albania is the xhiro an untranslatable word describing the activity of walking around town to wind up the day usually in the company of others the city is also becoming more inclusive the improvement in pavements lighting and street landscaping allowed women children and older people to reclaim the space that once belonged mostly to men in leather jackets smoking slim cigarettes the existence of many outdoor cafés facilitates the social role of the streets and promotes walking because people vary their destinations every day as the cafés are all unique unlike the soul destroying uniformity of those chain shops belonging to tax dodging corporations small parks and courtyards were renovated and became places where people spend time but all these factors are now under threat there are signs of increased segregation the bllok area once exclusive to the political elite is becoming off limits to some people again but now for economic reasons given the prices of properties and services there kusiak 2011 big multinationals are also coming in force and pushing for suburban retail development shopping centres now dot the road linking tirana with durres the second city of albania in areas with no walking access the free shuttle buses to these shopping centres are more frequent more comfortable and depart from a more convenient location in the centre than the normal buses serving residential areas finally walking is losing popularity pojani 2011 p 101 102 says that tirana is becoming status conscious and a sentiment is surfacing that walking other than recreational walking cycling and public transportation are lower image modes in another paper she says that shopping centres are a lure for the public because of the status associated with car borne shopping in high end stores pojani 2010 p 842 things are changing references kusiak j 2011 tyranny in tirana political utopia and its urban afterlife in j l pollock and m schwegmann eds espacios ambivalentes ediciones callejón viejo san juan pp 76 93 pojani d 2010 urban and suburban retail development in albania s capital after socialism land use policy 28 4 836 845 pojani d 2011 mobility equality and sustainability today in tirana journal of land use mobility and environment 4 2 99 109 leave a comment filed under policy tagged as albania attitudes towards walking place function of streets population density segregation social aspects social inclusion suburbanization tirana urban diversity urban planning may 8 2015 11 00 am tirana 3 redistributing road space the allocation of road space to different users was not a major problem in 20th century tirana because the main modes of transport used were bicycles and horse drawn carts often with elaborately carved wooden cabins carter 1986 p 277 as late as 1992 cars behaved as bicycles swerving to avoid the pedestrians and bicycles used whichever side of the road they liked de waal 2005 p 38 we are now in 2015 and there are 300 000 cars in tirana all of them asking for road space fortunately the city has taken measures to ensure that these cars do not take up all the space available many of the boulevards that line the city now have a wide median strip which is off limits to motorised traffic could this be a solution for london s seven sisters road strangely some of these median strips are also designated as off limits to pedestrians although this seems to be only in theory and in practice some motorised modes of transport such as motorbikes use the strips as well the ecovolis bike share system launched in 2011 and the new cycling lanes have also contributed to the promotion of cycling and have even been used as a way to make peaceful statements that the city belongs to all but i am not sure if the ecovolis system is still operating as the photo below suggests i am also not sure what will happen to the median strips and the cycling lanes after the boulevards are redesigned to accommodate the new mode of transport shown below photo from tirana municipality often the issue is not the allocation of space for users travelling along a road but the design of the points where different spaces meet for example where pedestrian circulation is interrupted by side roads dropped kerbs are a solution that makes a real difference for the wellbeing of people with restricted mobility admittedly these dropped kerbs seem to be much more frequent in the affluent bllok neighbourhood than in other parts of tirana especially in the suburbs the continuity of the pedestrian space is also interrupted by the space that private vehicles require when they are not circulating on the road when we look at the surface quality and evenness of access to garages and pedestrian pavements in some places it seems that priority has been given to the former in other places parked cars are major obstructions to the circulation of pedestrians another major problem arises at pedestrian crossings due to the traffic regulations albania is one of those countries where vehicles are allowed to turn from all directions when it s green for pedestrians which is very very very dangerous the city has many users all with different needs this post showed some of the issues planners face to accommodate those needs using the limited road space available references carter f w 1986 tirana city profile cities 3 4 270 281 de waal c 2005 albania today a portrait of post communist turbulence i b tauris london leave a comment filed under policy tagged as albania median strip pedestrian crossing pedestrian safety road design road space space allocation tirana march 6 2015 8 00 pm tirana 2 space for pedestrians the last post described how cars have started to dominate the landscape of tirana and suggested that this may be the natural result of fast economic and urban growth this and the next three posts will look at some aspects of the city life into more detail and find reasons to believe that growth is not necessarily accompanied by the deterioration of walkability and street liveability today s post describes the city s efforts to create pedestrian space the most visible of these efforts was the restoration of tanners bridge which dates from the ottoman period and used to cross the lana stream before it was rerouted the bridge is now the start of a pedestrian route that takes in other historical sites a smaller scale version of athens s dionysiou areopagitou street and is a nice shortcut to avoid two busy roads the effort to create safe and pleasant spaces exclusive to pedestrians is evident in the bollards and vases placed at the entrance of green spaces like grand park large and small squares around the city are also a refuge from the hustle and bustle of the city the look and feel of the city has also changed as many dusty muddy streets are now paved the tirana municipality webpage has several before and after pictures to show the changes the creation of pedestrian space is not easy in the summer of 2004 and 2005 car traffic was banned in some streets at some hours but the initiative was discontinued one of the reasons was the dissatisfaction of local businesses with the difficulty of access for the wealthier car owning customers pojani 2007 pedestrian pavements also tend to have worse conditions than road carriageways after all the expenditure in road maintenance and repair was 78 times greater than the expenditure in pavement repairs the internet has plenty of stories of travellers falling into holes in tirana but they do not really represent 2015 tirana however city streets often fail to provide a safe environment for all according to pojani 2011 p 101 102 more than 4 600 disabled people live in tirana but they are rarely seen outdoors in fact the conditions of some pavements are far from ideal even in the areas around the main square in other streets the space available for walking is small after deducting all the obstructions and the situation becomes progressively worse as we approach the eastern fringes of the city where new developments are starting to occupy the slopes of dajti mountain despite these problems the conditions for pedestrians in tirana have improved dramatically since the 1990s the next post will discuss how the improvement of pedestrian space fits into an overall strategy for the reallocation of city space among different types of users references pojani d 2007 car free areas in tirana fantasy or necessity albanian journal of natural and technical sciences 22 2 27 42 pojani d 2011 mobility equality and sustainability today in tirana journal of land use mobility and environment 4 2 99 109 41 327546 19 818698 leave a comment filed under policy tagged as albania pedestrian space pedestrian only pedestrianization tirana february 20 2015 11 52 pm reporting from tirana more money more cars more city less walking it is said that in the 1970s there was only 600 cars in the whole of albania i suppose that all of them belonged to enver hoxha and entourage this is how the main square of tirana skanderbeg square looked like cc by sa 3 0 after the fall of the communist regime and the chaotic 1990s the albanian economy started to growth very fast tirana s population doubled and its area expanded accordingly map by dorina pojani cc by sa 2 5 the expected result is that the city is now full of cars 300 000 of them the issue is not that many people have now access to private vehicles but that priority has been given to the improvement of the circulation of these vehicles in detriment to other modes of transport in 2015 tirana must be the only european capital city with neither a train station closed in september 2013 nor a bus station long distance buses depart from empty lots scattered across the city how about pedestrians in 2010 a plan was devised to transform skanderbeg square into a space where the bustle and the chaos stops allowing for something else to happen whatever it might be however the plan was scrapped one year later so cars are still allowed to use the road circling the square the space in the middle of the square is pleasant surrounded by several monuments and important buildings have i mentioned that this is the heart of albania but to get there pedestrians need to cross that road in other parts of central tirana the scenario is similar big roads many cars hard life for pedestrians as the city grows new areas are developed and regenerated and in these areas there is space for building wide roads with huge roundabouts however not many people will try to walk or cycle across these roundabouts in most cases they experience them inside a car taxi bus or minibus the biggest problems for pedestrians in tirana are probably the minor roads which have plenty of cars using them as rat runs and no pavements to seek refuge in so at first sight tirana looks like another example of a lost opportunity a city where economic and urban growth leads to the dominance of the car as it happened in plenty of other cities in the countries surrounding albania but the purpose of this blog is not to make an inventory of everything that is bad for pedestrians that would be too easy as problems can be identified in every city in the world so the next four posts will describe the positive aspects of walking in tirana including recent developments related to the a creation of space exclusive for pedestrians b reallocation of road space among different types of user c social and urban factors maintaining street life in the city centre and sustaining the pressure for decentralizing facilities and d renovation of small public spaces and building frontages 41 327546 19 818698 leave a 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