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Tirana - Durrës highway at the mercy of fate, degradation "threatens" the safety of users

Politiko 2025-05-20 09:21:37

Tirana - Durrës highway at the mercy of fate, degradation

Saturday had started off calmly for ES, who had chosen to travel from Tirana to Durrës to spend some time in the coastal city. The calm of the day was followed by panic when, while traveling at 60 km/h in the highway's slow lane, the driver almost went off the road while trying to avoid a pothole.

Scenes of this nature that threaten the safety of users due to the degraded condition of the road are repeated every day whenever this axis is described in both directions.

The potholes are endless and keep coming. Initially, they were more evident in the slow lane, which caused most drivers to flock to the fast lane, which has now also been degraded to the same point. Hopes that this road would be patched up, as is the tradition before elections and before the start of the tourist season, have now faded.

Recently, only in a small area near Vora have some pothole fillings been done. More than a planned job aimed at increasing safety, it seems as if the government had an extra handful of asphalt from somewhere else and decided not to waste it.

Tirana-Durrës is the main road artery in the country with the largest flow of vehicles circulating on a daily basis, as it also has a connection to the Port of Durrës, the largest in the country, but also to Tirana Airport. Despite the fact that crossing this road has become a daily stress for those who use it frequently, it seems that the start of the tourist season will make the problem and the conditions of the road even more evident.

Tour operators told "Monitor" that the organized transportation of tourists from the airport along this highway in large buses is one of those "adventures" that foreigners do not appreciate positively.

A road that is depreciated to these levels does not speak well of Albania in its overall tourist image. Part of the assessments of foreign agencies with clients they bring to Albania is also the infrastructure and when numerous roads have been built in the country, it is unfortunate that the main highway that leads tourists to Durrës and Golem is in this condition.

The government is meanwhile continuing with the works to expand the highway, where it has advanced with the section from the Kamza Turn to the Rinas Turn. Tenders for the rest of the section up to the entrance to Durrës have not yet been opened. The estimated cost of expanding the entire Tirana-Durres road, according to the 2025-2027 priority policy document, is around 300 million euros for 31 km.

It would be good if, in parallel with these works, which it is not known when they will be finished, the rest of the road, which has become a nightmare, especially for those who pass by every day, were also maintained, where traffic or damage to vehicles is the least of the headaches and the risk from the missing safety parameters that the road should have is great./Monitor

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