We are now, Arriva told us last Saturday, inside the last 100 days before the beginning of the new public transport system on 3 July.
On its part, Arriva is doing what it was contracted to do – purchase new buses, recruit new drivers and an entire workforce, etc. while Transport Malta is preparing the bus termini and what will be known as the bus interchanges.
But there was something said by Keith Bastow, Arriva’s managing director, last Saturday that should worry all.
He said Arriva will be operating ‘in an open environment’ on which it has no control whatsoever.
Such a statement needs translating.
It means that, come 3 July, we will get new, far more comfortable buses, more courteous drivers and a far better infrastructure such as buying tickets online or from machines. But there is no guarantee that bus travel times will be any better. The buses, in other words, will still be engulfed in the daily traffic jams on our roads. Journey times will not be in any way shorter.
The only counter-argument to that is that since the bus fleet will be some 200 less than it is today, there will be less buses on the roads. That may be true, but with the rate with which cars – new or second-hand – are coming in, any decrease in the traffic on the roads will be very short-lived, if it happens at all.
We feel that all the preparation, expense and trouble to set up the new bus system will be mostly in vain unless there is a significant improvement in bus travel times. That is perhaps the main attractiveness factor that will ensure that patronage of buses goes up again after the steady decrease of the past years – which is also something to which Arriva committed itself.
We all know the usual traffic jam places and times; it would be far too long to list them all, but there is Birkirkara’s valley, the Msida roundabout, the Pietà road, Ħamrun High Street, the badly-designed Addolorata traffic lights junction, and of course Testaferrata Street, the Gżira seafront, the Ferries and Tower Road.
How can Arriva plan to have buses arriving on time if they are to face such traffic jams?
Mr Bastow also said that TM is at present reviewing the entire bus route system with a view to identify the problem areas in preparation to doing something about them. That is good news. We and the bus travelling population look forward to seeing the crucial nodes identified and solved by enabling a far better traffic flow.
To our minds, unless we want to go the whole hog and introduce mass transport systems such as trams or light railways at least on the most travelled routes (such as Valletta to St Julian’s) – which may be some years down the line – there is no other way to go about solving the problem except by creating and enforcing more and more bus lanes, thus creating a system whereby buses get priority and people who take buses at least have the privilege of arriving before those who use their right to drive a car.
There is no other way about it, and the sooner the TM authorities realise this, the better for all. The only way to improve public transport is not just by getting in new and shiny buses, though that obviously helps, but through making public transport a faster (and also cheaper) way of getting from A to B.
There is only one way to do that in the Maltese context – we do not have the space to create wider and faster roads, just as we do not have the land to create more and more parking spaces around Valletta.
The success of the new public transport system depends on how much people who now use their personal mode of transport are encouraged to make use of buses.
It has been proved that a very high percentage of those travelling to Valletta in their cars, do so alone. One person cars are in a very big majority. Make them pay for this privilege, or at least make them wait. Give public transport a priority.