I am lucky because I do not have to drive to go to the office. I consider this as a great advantage over my colleagues. I see them arrive at work flustered, angry and irritated after having to endure countless minutes blocked in traffic. What should be a 15-minute drive to work always takes double that and many times even more.
In recent days there has been a debate on whether traffic issues are a perception, or whether they are a real cause of so much stress. I am sure that complaints about our traffic problems are genuine, and that this has come about because of three factors - the complete mess we have in the public transport sector, the poor road network and the mismanagement of road works.
Today, I will be dealing with public transport.
For many years, we had a system made up of old buses, uneducated drivers and an unreliable service that pushed people away from using public transport. Those who could afford to buy a car bought one, maybe even two. Today, there are 330,000 licensed cars, one per every adult. I don't think there are many other countries that can boast about this.
By the time the Nationalist government thought of reforming the public transport sector, the mentality that was ingrained in most of us was that irrespective of its success or otherwise, we would continue to use our private cars. Irrespective of how much we become enraged and how long it takes us to find a parking space, we still think it is more convenient to use our own vehicles.
Few were those who, with the advent of Arriva, chose to try out the new services. Their reluctance was compounded by an orchestrated campaign against it, one that was started by the Labour Party and picked up by sections of the media that pounced on every mishap to give Arriva a bad name. This, of course, did not encourage people to use the service. Yes, it had many imperfections, but it was not as bad as it was portrayed to be. Still, the anti-Arriva campaign worked so much so that the company decided to call it a day.
We are now in between what was provided by Arriva and what will come in January when the Spanish company contracted by the government will take over. These last few months, with the service taken over by the government, have thrown us into a deeper mess than what we had when Arriva was here. The only difference is that there is no ongoing campaign by a political party and a section of the media against the service. For some, under Labour anything goes and mediocrity is expected and accepted.
We still have buses that do not arrive on time, we still have situations when trips are missed, we still have situations when bus drivers are rude, and we still have situations when the bus drivers have to seek information from passengers about the route they have to take. We still have bad timings and complicated systems when one needs to catch two buses to get to a destination. We still have buses which block drivers behind them because the driver simply refuses to use the inlet at bus-stops. We still have bus drivers who drive in the middle of the road in a two-lane stretch. We still have buses that leave passengers stranded or break down.
The government says that the number of complaints have dropped considerably since Arriva left, which proves my point that the campaign against Arriva was huge and coordinated, and meant to last until Arriva were pushed out - and, before it, the Nationalist Party from government. In the past, people used to write in newspapers, blogs and social media. Today they are still disappointed and complain privately with their relatives and friends, but they do not bother informing the rest of Malta.
Public transport needs an overhaul. The one planned by Austin Gatt failed. Now we have another one planned by Joe Mizzi.
Will he get it right?