Right then.
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@pvdrijst Yes. But it’s a nerve wracking experience!
@jon I found the amount of traffic low, but have not been in Tirana, and it was 10 years ago. It's never like home where you're used to the amount of traffic.
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@jon I found the amount of traffic low, but have not been in Tirana, and it was 10 years ago. It's never like home where you're used to the amount of traffic.
@pvdrijst I have been here in 2019, 2024 and now, and the level of traffic has always been hellish. Cycling in the north in 2024 - to the border with Montenegro - was fine in comparison!
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And to those going "use the concrete ramp to jump the car", well, there are limits to what I can do on a folding bike
Cows grazing in front of half completed tower blocks
Tirana
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Tirana bike lanes
@jon may I present you Prague bike lane
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Cows grazing in front of half completed tower blocks
Tirana
Between Laprakë (where a railway station is being built) and the centre of Tirana, the alignment of the old railway crosses a highway
Good: they have at least made provision for a bridge (see the metal parts that will become supports)
Bad: they're going to make maximum a single track line. Contrast that with a six lane highway!
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@jon may I present you Prague bike lane
@bashoneliner Ha!
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Between Laprakë (where a railway station is being built) and the centre of Tirana, the alignment of the old railway crosses a highway
Good: they have at least made provision for a bridge (see the metal parts that will become supports)
Bad: they're going to make maximum a single track line. Contrast that with a six lane highway!
Also there are lots of things you can do with a former railway. Park cars on it. Vans on it. Make a footpath along it. Hang your washing along it...
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Also there are lots of things you can do with a former railway. Park cars on it. Vans on it. Make a footpath along it. Hang your washing along it...
As for the line from Durrës and the airport to Laprakë... they have sort of laid some track, partially, at Laprakë, since I was last there in 2024
But it is still a hell of a long way from being finished
Some minor works were happening there today
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As for the line from Durrës and the airport to Laprakë... they have sort of laid some track, partially, at Laprakë, since I was last there in 2024
But it is still a hell of a long way from being finished
Some minor works were happening there today
Overall I have the impression that Albania is building this railway so as they can show to the EU and other international partners that they are "modern" and a token effort is being made against road congestion
It's rather similar to their bike lanes. "Look we have bike lanes!"
No one can reasonably use the bike lanes, and not many will be able to use the train, but that's not the point
The point is to have these things, for credibility
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@jon Nobody expects you to do a backflip on a folding bike, but a quick mid-air fold should be possible, even with panniers and a water bottle
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As for the line from Durrës and the airport to Laprakë... they have sort of laid some track, partially, at Laprakë, since I was last there in 2024
But it is still a hell of a long way from being finished
Some minor works were happening there today
@jon clearly abandoned.
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Overall I have the impression that Albania is building this railway so as they can show to the EU and other international partners that they are "modern" and a token effort is being made against road congestion
It's rather similar to their bike lanes. "Look we have bike lanes!"
No one can reasonably use the bike lanes, and not many will be able to use the train, but that's not the point
The point is to have these things, for credibility
@jon cargo cult civil engineering?
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@jon clearly abandoned.
@zugkatze There were half a dozen people doing some work on the far side of the station, but I couldn't photograph them without drawing attention to myself
Something is sort of happening, but neither well not intensely! -
Tirana bike lanes
@jon What, no bunker at the end of the path to nowhere?
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@jon What, no bunker at the end of the path to nowhere?
@Infoseepage Ha. There was one bunker alongside the line, but it was too dangerous traffic to stop to photograph it!
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@Infoseepage Ha. There was one bunker alongside the line, but it was too dangerous traffic to stop to photograph it!
@jon I'm next door in North Macedonia and am struck by many similar things.
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@jon I'm next door in North Macedonia and am struck by many similar things.
@Infoseepage Right. But Albania is just one level more weird and more chaotic than North Macedonia
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@Infoseepage Right. But Albania is just one level more weird and more chaotic than North Macedonia
@jon There is a pretty high degree of basic infrastructure failure in much of the Balkans. My apartment in Skopje overlooks a big construction pit that has been rapidly turned into a place for people to heave their household trash, since municipal trash collection barely seems to exist here.
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@jon There is a pretty high degree of basic infrastructure failure in much of the Balkans. My apartment in Skopje overlooks a big construction pit that has been rapidly turned into a place for people to heave their household trash, since municipal trash collection barely seems to exist here.
@jon The one that cracks me up though is Novi Sad in Serbia. Second biggest city. They've got a bridge over the Danube and there is like 2 blocks worth of pedestrian sidewalk extending out from it and then it just ends and you're left to walk several miles to the train station in Petrovaradin tromping through high grass on a completely unimproved narrow road shoulder. And this is because the station in Novi Sad is closed because a chunk of it collapsed and killed a bunch of people.
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@jon The one that cracks me up though is Novi Sad in Serbia. Second biggest city. They've got a bridge over the Danube and there is like 2 blocks worth of pedestrian sidewalk extending out from it and then it just ends and you're left to walk several miles to the train station in Petrovaradin tromping through high grass on a completely unimproved narrow road shoulder. And this is because the station in Novi Sad is closed because a chunk of it collapsed and killed a bunch of people.
@Infoseepage I didn't actually (yet!) try to walk to Petrovaradin. I only passed through in the train. But this does not surprise me, sadly.
