By the Ecovolis Team
Fall 2018 InGear

It was a Saturday afternoon when the activists of EcoVolis went out as usual to patrol the new bicycle lanes here in Tirana, Albania. In one lane there was a motorcycle driving fast, in another a car that had completely blocked the bike lane. A total of 12 miles of lanes built in a very short time by the head of PASS/Ecovolis, now titled the “Bike Mayor”. PASS and Pedals for Progress are the right combination to turn Tirana into the City of Bikes.

In just a moment we counted over ten bikers using the lanes. It was a rare emotion for the activists who have fought for ten years for protected lanes. Now these lanes are flowing rivers of bikers. Just like boats on true rivers, these bikers go about their days on these lanes.

We take a look back in time: How did we get here? The collaboration with Pedals for Progress gave the opportunity to PASS, the mother organization of EcoVolis, to undertake tens and hundreds of activities with the mission to return bikes to Tirana. It was the start of this partnership in 2000 that decided how things were going to be for the bikers of Tirana today. And how beautiful things are!

There are daily bikers for the Day Care, Two-wheels Academy, Free the Lanes, weekend biking, tour guides for guests, bikes for kids who cannot afford them, bikes for the elderly and the communities that need them. One great example is the transformation of 30 bikes from P4P into cargo bikes for the Romani community to work in the recycling field (a total of 60 new jobs).

The number of bikers in Tirana has grown tenfold. At the EcoVolis Service shop a lot of bikers come to repair or exchange their bikes for better ones from the U.S.A. This led us to start to train young girls and boys to repair bikes in order to open more EcoVolis Service points and also to create new jobs for more people.

Now that there are more than 7000 bikes from P4P, EcoVolis has another ambitious mission: to open a bike school. Taking as examples other countries where bikes are ubiquitous—the Netherlands and Denmark, for example—Tirana is also at the point in which it is opening the first schools for bikes, with the full support of P4P. This school, now in the planning stages, is expected to add 3000–4000 bikers to the lanes per year.

To change movement in a city with over 1 million inhabitants is the story of the success of a strong partnership like the one between U.S.A./P4P and Albania/PASS. When we look back we cannot believe that fate and time approached us with such a virtuous organization, whose support and energy helped us to create so many jobs for the community and to make a two-wheel revolution for our city. Thank you, Pedals For Progress. You are already a Nobel Prize organization.