Tirana, Albania
Creating safe spaces to walk for students at four schools
The Project
Tirana’s “School Block” project converted 1,900 square meters of former roadbed and 1,770 square meters of courtyard into a cohesive 3,670 square meters of protected walking and rolling space. The project captured all four sides of a city block containing four educational facilities: two primary schools, a kindergarten and a nursery school. The project provides safe places for students to travel to and from school and addresses the lack of open space for recreation, as well as the extreme car dominance in the neighborhood. The primary stakeholders of School Block are 2,000 families that are served by the four schools on the site, and the names of the students were incorporated directly into the graffiti-inspired artwork created by Naim Frasheri and Gustav Mayer, providing literal space for the children on the site and cementing their sense of belonging in their neighborhood.
- The percentage of people who felt safe around the school more than quadrupled, from 17% to 90%
- Nearly 99% of survey respondents said they were satisfied with the project
- Following this project, the City of Tirana announced plans for similar safety projects at 20 more schools
Best Practice Highlight: Piloting Citywide School Streets
Following the success of this “School Block” project, the City committed nearly €1 million to install similar improvements at 20 additional schools, converting the adjacent streets into permanent “school streets,” which would either banish or significantly limit car traffic and redesign them around children’s needs instead. The effort would double the number of kid-friendly corridors in the city and get it 40% of the way toward its goal of protecting every neighborhood school by 2026.
How Tirana Used Asphalt Art to Make This Busy School Intersection Safer
“School streets not only improve safety where children and parents need it most, but they also kick-start a larger conversation about shifting priority away from cars to pedestrians in the city.”
Simon Battisti, Director, Qendra Marrëdhënie (Relationship Center)
Use the sliders to see the transformation
Press
An Albanian City Creatively Reclaims Streets for Kids (Bloomberg Philanthropies, June 25, 2024)
This Albanian City Should Inspire America to Go Big on ‘School Streets’ (StreetsBlogUSA, January 4, 2024)
Public Space Near Primary Schools Gustav Mayer and Naim Frasheri is Revitalized. (Shqiptarja.com, September 25, 2023)
Recreational Space in Gustav Mayer and Naim Frasheri Schools. (ABC News Albania, September 25, 2023)
New School Streets in Tirana. (Vizion Plus TV media, September 25, 2023)
For inspiration and tips for the creation of art on roadways and public places, download the Bloomberg Associates Asphalt Art Guide which features successful plaza and roadway art activations around the world, as well as key steps for developing such projects.
