Tirana Parking in 3 years "occupied" more than 70% of the capital's public parking lots

Author: Brejdon Xhavara

If you have a business meeting, a coffee to drink in the capital, or to make a purchase in the shops, the first thought that comes to your mind is where you should park your car. You are lucky if you manage to find a free public place to park, or you will be forced to pay for a public service in private or paid public parking lots that the Municipality of Tirana has.

The territory of Tirana Municipality is being developed every day, hundreds of square meters are being built in the capital, turning traffic and parking into a nightmare for every driver. According to accumulated statistics, only 1% of cars in Tirana can find a free public parking space.

Tirana is the city with the heaviest traffic in Albania, with around 120 thousand vehicles circulating every day. In the capital, there are 5385 parking spaces divided into 3908 paid parking spaces and 1430 free parking spaces. These parking spaces are managed by Tirana Parking, a company that was opened in November 2015 by the decision of the Tirana Municipal Council and is subordinate to the Municipality of Tirana.

Since the first year when the company was founded, the number of free public parking spaces began to decrease every year, because immediately the white visas, which indicated that you could park there for free, were replaced by blue visas, where the drivers of cars had to pay a fee for every hour they stayed there.

Sipas Tirana Municipal Decision no. 49, dated 11.11.2015 (MCD) the company "Tirana Parking" has in its administration 70% of paid public parking spaces, while 30% of parking spaces must be free.

Residential areas and the lack of information for citizens...

In the neighborhoods of the capital, a new sign has already been placed that reads residential area where no one can park who does not have a "stamp" on the windshield of the car.

Residential parking is one of the forms where citizens can park in their neighborhood for free just by being equipped with a resident card, but now even this method has become a nuisance for residents. Fines placed above the car window have become a daily occurrence for the "5 Maj" neighborhood in the capital, Ali Dedja said that in his building, the municipal police come 4 times a day and impose fines on the cars parked below, "I have been parking my car next to my building for 5 years, I have been seeing fines on my car for three days, but I can't understand it, I asked the Municipal Police and they told me that it is a residential area and I have to get a resident card," says Dedja, for the Albanian Center for Quality Journalism.

Urban expert Gerti Delli tells ACQJ that public parking is one of the problems that residents of many neighborhoods in Tirana are facing, especially in the small ring road of Tirana. "The parking locations and "signs" have been set without a proper plan for parking in Tirana. Today in the capital there is no proper plan for transportation in general and parking in particular. Without a plan, there will always be problems in managing this important sector. Solutions with pilot projects and 4-color maps (based on Tirana parking for residents) have not brought a solution to the problem but rather an aggravation of this problem," explains Delli.

The Albanian Center for Quality Journalism requested information from the Municipality of Tirana on how many public parking spaces have already been converted into residential parking spaces. The Municipality of Tirana, through an official letter, said that there are 5841 parking spaces divided into four zones designated as (ZAP1, ZAP2, ZAP3, ZAP4).

ACQJ, through an official letter, requested from Tirana Parking: " What should the parking infrastructure be like in Tirana so that citizens have the opportunity to park for free?"

Tirana Parking indicates that : Free parking for citizens on the streets that Tirana Parking administers is intended in two forms:

Free parking after the end of the time slot (08:00-20:00) for all vehicles; Free parking for residents of the areas defined by the Municipal Council Decision. The citizens of Tirana can currently park for free in 4 Free Parking Zones, these zones are defined by the Municipal Decision. As we explained above, parking in these areas is possible by equipping the citizen with a Resident Card.

According to expert Delli, only four parking areas are not a solution. The initiative to provide free parking for residents is a positive approach, but it is not enough to have only four spots and solve the problem in this sector. Planning based on the population that each neighborhood will need would bring a statistic that would be important for planning parking spaces. The chaos in this sector has brought problems with "car occupation" in public spaces that can be parks, sidewalks or flower beds, he adds.

What is happening with free public parking?

The Albanian Center for Quality Journalism interviewed another urban expert, Kedis Burrja, who said that the parking problem began as soon as the construction of the dozens of meter-high towers began. Along with them, the problem of unforeseen parking spaces in plans and projects was added. " Currently, in Tirana, the parking problem is gradually increasing in two areas: the central area of ​​the city (more or less inside the ring road) and the one in the peripheral area (the areas of city expansion beyond the ring road). In the central area of ​​the city since the 90s, parking has been more of a problem of organization than of the amount of space ," says Burrja.

With the evolution of the city, constructions and the occupation of public space, Tirana is already overpopulated, the main streets such as "Myslym Shyri", "Boulevardi Zogu i Parë", "Rruga Bardhyl" areas such as "Community of Paris", "Train Station" , "Rruga e Dibra", "Rruga e Kavaja", "Rruga e Durrës", "Mine Peza", etc., the car park has been removed and some of the streets have been turned into bicycle lanes, causing quite a bit of sales by various companies such as taxis or businesses.

The urban expert further states, “ Many of the old problems escalated to the point of being lost within the fresh problems caused by the accommodation of these new gigantic construction structures. Old Services such as squares of blocks and neighborhoods, the possibility of bicycle circulation, public transportation, spaces for emergency Services, playgrounds, parks, sidewalks, etc., were gradually diminished by the demands of these out-of-scale facilities. Being incompatible with our cities due to history, culture, construction materials, terrain and needs, their adaptation displaced the main roads, changed the above and underground infrastructure, shrank the space and transformed its functions which affected everything from the decline of the city's living well-being to the alienation of local culture, history and lifestyle; the continued massive population exodus are proof of these phenomena over time . ”

Tirana Parking, over 318 million lek profits from parking in 2020

Since 2015, when Tirana Parking was established, it has increased its earnings from the payments that citizens have made through a message on the phone divided into three areas (Zone A 100 lek, Zone B 40 lek and Zone C 20 lek).ë Tirana Parking from the first year of work until 2020 there is a doubling of income, while the best period is 2019 where they managed to earn about 469 million ALL.

The Albanian Center for Quality Journalism asked Tirana Parking who, what are the problems and how can the parking issue be resolved?

According to Tirana Parking, the main problem for citizens remains the lack of information on free parking. "There are still many citizens who are not informed about the way the parking service is organized in the city, but also by others who, even though they are aware, do not want to respect the parking rules". The most prominent and repeated problems from citizens are: The request for an alternative way of paying for the parking service on the street, the provision of more than one Resident Stamp per family, since according to the internal regulation of the institution, it is not allowed to provide more than one family member with this Card. The request for the provision of a Resident Stamp for business vehicles, the requests and complaints of citizens. Tirana Parking tries to analyze and study the policies for improving Services and select the most efficient alternatives, in order to facilitate the possibility of parking in Tirana", emphasizes Tirana Parking in its response to the Albanian Center for Quality Journalism.

The complaints of the citizens of Tirana are even higher, unplanned parking is found everywhere in Tirana, it is enough to observe the streets of the capital and you will see how white and blue lines have been placed on the main streets, narrowing the carriageway and causing accidents, such is the street "Besim Alla" area of ​​Misto Mames where 3 months ago the situation was this and today the situation is this, endangering the lives of citizens.

Does Tirana have infrastructure for the expansion of parking spaces?

Expert Kedis Burrja finds it difficult to increase parking spaces in a city that is oriented towards narrowing public spaces through the construction of towers: " In this new order of problems dominated by those of ten-story towers, the production of other ten-story towers is constantly implemented as a solution. It is understandable where this path of progressive accumulation of problems with a lack of solutions ends. On the other hand, in the peripheral areas of the city, another phenomenon occurs. Parking problems vary greatly from area to area, but there are areas where parking is not a problem at all. This is not due to good solutions but is due to the development created there in a great or complete lack of public Services in general. Meanwhile, among them there are other newly developed or still developing areas that suffer mainly from a lack of planning . "

For expert Gerti Delli, the main problem is the occupation of public spaces for vehicle parking. "By not doing an in-depth analysis of this sector, then the solutions will be with pilot projects that will open up even more problems as has happened. The closures of parking lanes on main roads have led to the flow going to neighborhoods and especially occupying public spaces and sidewalks. If we notice carefully in every neighborhood there are cars on the sidewalk, which has brought major problems for the residents of the neighborhood and beyond . "

Expert Delli believes that the solution should be at the neighborhood level. "Community participation is essential to understand what the interests of all actors in the area are. Parking has become a stress for both people who have 1 vehicle and especially for neighborhood residents when they see cars parked everywhere in public spaces," he emphasizes.

The buildings built in the time of communism do not have underground parking and as such, the entire street "Hoxha Tahsim" since 2016 has been a street where you can park on the right hand side, allowing other cars to avoid being blocked. the street, while today you can no longer park on this street, and the side where the cars used to park has already turned into a bicycle track, no longer allowing cars to stop to rest.

For citizens living in the “New Market” area, parking is a nightmare because the buildings they live in have no space to park. Luan Shima, an early resident of New Market, says that the buildings built here date back to 1970 and are not built with underground parking. “We have 2 cars in the family, when my son comes home from work it takes 30 minutes to look for a parking space in the nearby neighborhoods because there is no space at our building, and I move my car once a week because I am afraid that they might take my space if I move it every day,” he says.

Urban planner Burrja explains that: "public parking is a public service. As such, it is costly and the costs along with its distribution are managed jointly, in order to provide it to citizens in the most equitable way possible, without distinctions between suburbs or centers, wealth or rank, adapting to the needs of the time and lifestyle for the parking service. Private parking, on the other hand, is also a public service, but it is always profiled to the needs and possibilities of the owner who offers it and the consumers. The better the planning, design, technology and materials of the public parking infrastructure, the higher the quality of the service will be."

He believes that the parking management by the Municipality of Tirana has failed . "In the specific case of Tirana, all four of these characteristics leave much to be desired. The reasons are not related to capacities and opportunities, but rather to management directions. The concrete result of today's management is the daily experience of various parking problems, which from experience increasingly resemble torture . "

The "fat" fines of the Municipal Police, in 2018 over 100 million in revenue...

Parking in Tirana also brings other problems, very frequent is the administrative measures that the Municipal Police imposes when the vehicle is parked on the street against the traffic sign. According to the official data made available by the Municipality of Tirana, the ACQJ, the Police The municipality has managed to collect a high figure of income from 2017-2020 from fines for drivers. The golden year for the Municipal Police is the year 2018, where it managed to collect from "fines" more than 100 million Lek and the lowest year is 2017 with about 53 million Lek.

The revenues collected from public parking spaces in lek and administrative measures go to the budget of the Municipality of Tirana under a single motto " This payment goes to the greening of the city", but there are numerous accusations raised by Environmentalists about the greening of the city, and in recent developments in the territory, the Municipality of Tirana has even paved the way for the construction of high-rise buildings with many floors, further reducing the green space.

Since Erion Veliaj took the leadership of the city, one of the promises was the organization of public space for parking, with the opening of the terminals for the South and North buses, this was the last investment by the Municipality of Tirana. Since 2015 until now today the municipality has established bicycle lanes as a better way to protect the environment from the fumes released by cars and on the other hand has narrowed the space of the main roads in Tirana, not allowing any infrastructural development opportunities to park.

The man shows that the problems that need to be solved to enjoy the public parking service are of a managerial and political nature, he further says that: " Their technical part is easily repairable if the first two are fixed. A key aspect that connects the two, I think, has to do with the use of wrong reference examples for development. Often, taking advantage of the inferiority complex cultivated for decades in our people, certain models are specifically advertised for a new development required with the ostensibly justification that they are the most advanced practices in the world. Perhaps somewhere in the world they can really be used and work, but what is overlooked in this approach are two main things: 1) the conditions in which the practices are developed and 2) the purpose for which development is required.

Although the problems are visible to the eyes of citizens in Tirana, experts documented the several years of parking problems in Tirana, while the Municipality of Tirana and Tirana Parking stated that “there are still many citizens who are not informed about the way the parking service is organized in the city, but also by others who, even though they are aware, do not want to respect the parking rules”. The ACQJ observation highlighted that Tirana Parking “occupied” more than 70% of public parking spaces over 3 years and that 1430 free public spaces were replaced by “Residential Parking”, leaving citizens without a choice, spending more money on parking and fines.