Ralph Cassar

Criticism directed towards the Minister of Transport regarding the traffic situation is more than justified. After all, following the shambles left behind by 20 years of ignoring the traffic issue, with the only so called solutions being the building of yet more roads and a botched, underfunded public transport system, Minister Mizzi promised to solve the problem in a bat of an eyelid.

The problem with most of those doing the criticising is that they want more of the same. So called solutions which are self-defeating and avoid the real issue: We are all part of the problem. The problem has a name few dare to speak: Too many cars, most of the time carrying only the car drivers. The Nationalist Opposition, in fact, just points at its record of building new roads. As if building new roads anywhere in the congested cities of Europe (to take places closer to home) solved anything.

The problem with the Minister is that his solutions are short-term, and in some cases in fact create more traffic. Let's take Valletta.

The government's solution is creating more parking spaces in Valletta, opening up Valletta to private cars, dismantling, instead of strengthening the controlled vehicle access system, and turning the Valletta ditch into a car park. That the Government cannot at least control traffic in the country's capital city, and get people to use public transport to just one central destination speaks volumes of its commitment to sustainable mobility.

Car parks in already congested areas just mean more congestion, more cancerous emissions and a degradation of communities. The demise of Msida, one of the most polluted localities in Malta, is a (barely) living example of how traffic can destroy a community. To save the community, Msida centre needs to be declared a zero-emission urgently, served only by public transport, including by sea if necessary, open to pedestrians and clean forms of mobility. Of course there will be grumbling and moaning, the Opposition will speak of the 'rights' of people to drive through Msida whenever they want, and Government, with not one measly line about how to practically tackle the pollution issue in its manifesto will not do anything. According to my sources the previous administration had approved at Cabinet level low-emission zones (that is congestion charges) for Msida, Hamrun and other highly polluted areas. The scheme was never implemented.

Another bright idea is a car park bang in the middle of Cospicua. This area has kilometres of road with parking spaces along them in between the bastions, which barring some major event are always empty. Again, if Government cannot organise transport towards a major attraction such as the Three Cities, and schemes such as park-and-ride from areas such as outside Floriana, Pembroke, Marsa, Ta' Qali for one off major events, then we are really scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to ideas.

There is no one solution. I will not shy away from proposing them, controversial as they might be. They are proposals based on values not political convenience and cheap populism. First of all, the mania of increasing parking spaces in already congested areas should be forgotten. More parking spaces just means more traffic. When it comes to commuting for work Government should have all the data needed ­ such as where people coming from each town and village work, in order­ to plan the provision of public transport to and from areas with a high concentration of commuting workers. Similarly, park-and-ride schemes and parking space management systems can be adopted where cars carrying more than one person are given priority.

I am sure that certain sectors of the population which would eagerly turn to bicycles, or for some extra help uphill, electric bicycles for commuting: the young, the young at heart, students. The problem is that people feel that our roads are, justifiably, not safe enough to navigate by bicycle. Every effort at reducing space-eating cars on the road is a help in reducing congestion. Is it possible that the Minister and his policy advisors have never even heard of incentives for commuting by bicycles in European cities? What needs to be done is to divert funds collected from car licences, instead of to the self-defeating exercise of building new roads, to the provision of infrastructure and incentives for commuters using alternative forms of transport. A fraction of the hundreds of millions spent on roads will go a long way in at least starting a modal shift in commuting patterns.

What we need is more open spaces in our congested towns and villages, less cancer causing fumes, more public transport options, more bicycles on safer roads. The €100 million or so collected annually from car licences should go towards providing real and long lasting solutions to private transport. They should go towards saving the populations of the most polluted towns, from Msida, to Ħamrun, from Fgura and Paola to Mosta and Birkirkara, from Qormi to Marsaskala, from the dangerous health effects of excessive traffic.

We are all part of the problem. Whenever you and I are stuck in a traffic jam, we are in fact the ones causing it. So let's get real and admit that the only solution is changing the way we move from one place to another. There are success stories all around us to learn from what's missing is real leadership.

 

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Ralph Cassar is Alternattiva Demokratika's spokesperson energy, transport and industry and local councillor in H'Attard