After decades of shameful neglect of public transport and of pandering to private car transport by designing our roads solely for motor traffic, while neglecting healthy mobility options, such as walking or cycling, Malta now has a concentration of around 3,000 vehicles per square mile and people depend entirely on their car to travel even for short intra-urban distances. Traffic is so heavy that the social function of urban streets is impaired.
In terms of health, this translates into obesity and physical unfitness, the latter being a potent cause of illness and premature death in itself. In addition to obesity and unfitness from lack of exercise, exposure to traffic pollution results in much expensive ill-health in our adult and young population. That this must be so is evident from the findings of large-scale long-term surveys, such as those conducted by the American Cancer Society, the Harvard Six Cities Study in the USA and many other large-scale scientific studies in Europe.
Our prevalence of asthma is one of the highest in the world, and it is possible that Malta has already started to experience increased rates of maturity onset diabetes and heart disease, while increases in lung and other cancers, which take longer to incubate, will follow in coming years.
As your editorial states, traffic is now so dense that a car journey of a few kilometres can now take an hour. I personally find I can get faster from St Julian’s to any destination in Valletta by bicycle than by car. But conditions facing cyclists in Malta are atrocious. I commuted almost daily to work for about 25 years while working abroad in European mainland countries, yet I never had one single adverse incident.
This contrasts miserably with Malta, where bicycle trips routinely include a disagreeable incident of some sort or another. Motorist prejudice against cyclists might be an inherited legacy of our British colonial past. Britain was until recently a thoroughly cycle-unfriendly country and my experience of daily commuting to work in outer London in the 1980s was almost as scary as in Malta. Attitudes in the UK have changed radically since then. London, the once bicycle-unfriendly city, has now embraced the bicycle. Millions have been invested in adapting London to the bike, and this includes the Barclays Bicycle Hire System and a dozen or so “Bicycle Highways” leading from the periphery to the centre, where bikes have priority over cars.
What is now happening in London happened long ago in many European countries – foremost examples being Holland and Denmark. Now most European cities are using various approaches to discourage the car and invite cyclists.
Contrary to what many people maintain, bicycles and pedestrians can coexist. It is now commonplace to see pedestrianised roads with people on foot and on bicycles sharing the same space and going about their shopping and other business as though it is the most natural thing in the world. In these countries the popularity of the bicycle simply represents a healthy attitude that is distributed evenly across all income groups.
In terms of healthy mobility, antiquated attitudes persist: Malta remains firmly stuck in a 1950s time warp. Now, after decades without decent public transport, we are promised a spanking-new public transport system. This is fine, but having designed our environment only for motor vehicles, it is unlikely that a reformed public transport will lure people out of the comfort of their car to walk to the bus stop along our pedestrian-unfriendly roads. At the same time there is absolutely no sign of any attempt to encourage cycling, so the bicycle will continue to be abused and hated by motorists.
Much thought was given to the question of promoting bicycle use in Part III of the Think Tank report “Towards a Low Carbon Society - the Nation’s Health, Energy Security and Fossil Fuels” (http:// www.tppi.org.mt/cms/index.php/ reports). The Transport Authority and Health Department are urged to read this section of the report. The suggested recommendations will mostly cost little or nothing if implemented, and they would help to popularise this practical, convenient, healthy, non-polluting form of mobility, which has become a mainstream mode of transport for short or urban trips in advanced, affluent European countries.
Having more people on bicycles in our towns would also restore the social functions of our streets by providing more opportunities for people to meet and talk. Apart from the health and social benefits, encouraging bicycle use would also diminish the excessive use of cars for short intra-urban trips, decrease traffic congestion and pollution on our roads, and help our new public transport move more smoothly.