Veliaj: Today, Tirana is many times cleaner than when we found it. Soon, dedicated bus lines

17:51 20/02/2023

In a discussion table with urban planners and architects, following the public debates “Tirana City Talks”, the mayor Erion Veliaj pointed out the improvement of air quality, for which he invited anyone to check it through online applications such as Il Meteo or the Kopernik center .

“From Il Meteo or the Kopernik center, which measure the air quality for every city, Tirana is rated 8 out of 10 – sometimes we are 9, sometimes we are 8 – but, eight years ago, the same application ranked Tirana with red, he gave a grade of 2, 3 and 4, not even a passing grade: so, something clearly happened. So, I tend to say that we have a lot to do, but some things have been done well. The city is cleaner, we went from a city that was cleaned once a day to a city that was cleaned three times a day. Even though consumption has increased, activities have also increased, but Tirana has faced the issue of cleaning”, said Veliaj.

The mayor said that this transformation has come, in the first place, due to the change of mentality in Tirana.

“Whenever they ask me what is the biggest investment we have made – New Boulevard, “Skënderbej” Square, New Bazaar, or Tirana River – I tell them that the biggest and most difficult investment is these 10 cm on the head ours”.

Veliaj also spoke about the fast urban bus lines, which will be introduced in Tirana this summer season.

“We are ready to launch this summer what is called “Bus Rapid Transit”, the rapid bus line, with dedicated and non-stop lanes. So, as we have done the bicycle lines, we want to do the same with the buses. According to this system, we will cross the Kinostudio – Kombinat line, the Ring Road and New Tirana. The prediction is that if the complete journey of the line took us 54 minutes, we want to take it to 24 minutes, and the speed of the buses from 9.5 km/h to 19.4 km/h. So doubling the speed and halving the time. If we double the speed, if we double the time and if we go from a transport of 9,000 passengers per hour to 23,000 passengers per hour, we have significantly reduced traffic, especially in these three main arteries of the cities,” said Veliaj.

In the end, he also mentioned the concept of the 15 Minute City that is being developed in the two new neighborhoods of Tirana, “Kombinati” and “5 Maji”./broread