It happens every morning. It happens every lunchtime. It happens every afternoon and it happens every evening. We are just constantly stuck, sitting in traffic.

This island seems to have become one eternal gridlock. No matter what time you take to the roads, they are choked. Traffic sits nose to tail for up to an hour to just move a matter of a few kilometres. I am not even writing about the anomalous situations caused by roadworks on various arterial routes. I am writing about the very real hell that commuters have to go through to get from A to B on this island. Usually, the summer holidays offer some respite from the traffic as parents do not need to take their parents to school on a morning and pick them up in the afternoon. But it doesn’t seem to have made any difference this year. It just seems like it is never ending.

Much was said about Arriva, but despite the improvement registered in service, it is still not reliable and quick enough for people to use it on a regular basis. People still arrive late at work, and this is unacceptable.

We have spoken of trams and rail service, but the only real solution would be a spoke-type underground system to the major hubs, which then branch off by bus to outlying villages. Will it be cost effective? Probably not. But seeing as we are a country that prefers to ignore painfully obvious bottlenecks in traffic, such as Marsa, Kappara and many others, then perhaps a radical solution needs to be found. Oh, but we could just build a couple of flyovers instead. On second thoughts no, that won’t work, we’re Maltese, it’s too simple a solution for us to comprehend.

Not to stop at the general fury that grips every motorist every time they enter a car, I will also touch on pollution. Have you ever looked out of a high-rise building and noticed the fumes that drift up from a main traffic artery? Even modern cars produce emissions, but some of the older vehicles are a health hazard and should not be on the road. Take trucks, for instance. Some of them date back to the 1940s and the vast majority are fuel guzzling, smog-belching relics from the 70s and 80s.

Perhaps we ought to pedestrianise the whole island. We would certainly be fitter and we would probably get to work in better time anyway. All we need is a law to stipulate that showers are available at the workplace. Or is that another law already implemented that most employers disregard?

John Fenech

Paola