That the public transport system was in dire need of a complete revamp is beyond any doubt whatsoever but, as is said, the devil lies in the detail.
According to the transport minister, who last Saturday proffered a veiled apology for the debacle Malta’s commuters have been unwillingly roped into, the government underestimated the people’s reaction to the new system – or did he actually mean that they (the government) overestimated the people’s potential to grasp what he described as a system that was “too avant-garde, too innovative”? The answer to that lies in the listener’s own interpretation.
The new public transportation system was originally about getting commuters from point A to B to in relative comfort, and in a timely fashion. It was also about reducing emissions on our roads, with so many areas of the country suffering dangerous levels of PM10 pollution caused by traffic emissions.
Getting the old yellow clunkers off the roads was one huge step in the right direction, but getting people onto the new, environmentally cleaner buses is quite another task. Hopes were high at the launch of the new system that those of us who are enslaved to our cars and who in reality only need to travel from home to work and back again, would be persuaded to hang up their keys on at least some workday mornings.
The new system did actually get people from point A straight to point B, but the only problem is the routes took the wrong way around the alphabet and stopped everywhere else in between.
It left people stranded on bus stops in the height of summer, long bus routes created frustratingly lengthened journeys that circumnavigated the island before proceeding to central points such as Valletta and the hospital, and the ensuing public relations fallout and the loss of public confidence in the system will perhaps bind people to their cars more than the old system ever did.
Now following a series of unsuccessful tweaks to the system, at the beginning of next month Transport Malta and Arriva intend to embark upon what appears to be a last-ditch effort to salvage the public transport system from its listing position, by revisiting the two most important elements of the so-called hub and spoke system – the direct routes to the hospital and to Valletta, amongst other remedies. These two routes are arguably the most important on the island, and people were very clearly at a loss without them.
When it had come to planning out the new routes, there had been a very convincing school of thought arguing for a staggered implementation of the new circular routes, while at the same time retaining most or at least some of the old hub and spoke elements - a gradual introduction that would not have reinvented this crucial wheel that helps in so many ways to keep the country turning.
The minister had acknowledged on Saturday that, ‘We thought we could change everything from day one’ and one can hardly be blamed for wanting to so drastically change something that was so, so wrong.
How that change was enacted is another matter altogether, and one can only hope that this next change will set the reform well and truly rolling.