Yesterday, for the second time in this pre-budget week, the Prime Minister hinted that the country’s transport woes will be addressed in some way, shape or form in tomorrow’s budget. The Prime Minister is certainly reacting to the public outrage vented recently when traffic gridlocks left morning commuters stranded in traffic.

That does not, however, mean that budgetary ways and means to address the transport problems plaguing the country had not already been contemplated before the advent of the scholastic year and the rainy season, and all the traffic chaos that ensued on a number of occasions this month.

The congestion on the country’s roads has, after all, been a perennial source of complaint, and the situation has deteriorated over the last two years – in no small part due to continued work on the Coast Road and other major thoroughfares.

The good news is that the government has received the message that people are fed up with the traffic situation. It is acknowledging that the situation is not a mere ‘perception’ – a running national joke ever since a government functionary quipped that the country’s traffic chaos was merely a ‘perception’.

That perception hit home hard once again on Tuesday morning this week when, for the umpteenth time of late, morning rush hour traffic ground to a complete halt and what are normally 20 minute trips took more than an one-hour-and-a-half to complete. Thousands of people were late for work or for whatever other meeting or errand they had planned for that morning. The end result: national productivity and quality of life suffered yet another blow.

This situation is, however, far from a problem of the current government’s making. The fact of the matter is that successive governments have tried to tackle the problem, with only fleeting and often questionable success.

That is why the justice minister, speaking at the beginning of Tuesday’s debate while standing in for the transport minister, was absolutely correct when he said that the worst thing to do at the moment would be to politicise the issue: the last government failed to sort out the problems plaguing our roads, and those problems have arguably been exacerbated under the current administration.

It is appreciated that there are some very big projects in the pipeline such as the Kappara roundabout and the Addolorata flyovers, but other measures certainly need to be put in place in the meantime. If matters persist in this way until those two projects are completed, the country’s competitiveness – along with much of commuters’ will to live – will have been all but wiped off the board by then.

That is because apart from commuters’ very obvious frustrations, there is the very serious risk that businesses will begin to feel the pinch in the not too distant future should the situation persist, which it threatens to do with the advent of  the rainy season now well and truly upon us.

As such, immediate interim measures must be taken, one of which should be an increase in the number of traffic police on the roads, especially in the morning, to ensure better flows of traffic at certain congestion hotspots.

Another, referred to by the Prime Minister during this week’s traffic debate, is the test introduction of a so-called ‘tidal lane system’, which allows for the lanes on a road to be reallocated from one side to another to cater for traffic exigencies.

That system, as we report in today’s issue, will be tested out in Paola, on the very busy Sir Paul Boffa Avenue.  It is hoped that such a system will prove successful and that it will be introduced in other congestion hotspots in the near future.

These are both positive stopgap measures, but what is really needed is a holistic traffic management plan, a plan that actually works. It is incredible that the EU’s most densely populated country – in terms of both people and cars – does not have one. But then again, perhaps we were caught with our pants down after the number of cars on the country’s roads doubled in the 15 years since 2000.

However, the Prime Minister, rather than clearly spelling out a holistic plan, yesterday referenced a number of possible initiatives: an underground system and the incorporation of more tunnels into the road network. While the former suggestion appears rather fanciful, Dr Muscat certainly lived long enough in Brussels to have appreciated the wisdom of incorporating more tunnels to ease congestion and to get people from A to B in shorter times.

He also said that the upcoming Connections project would make ferries from Sliema and the south of the island to Valletta would help to alleviate traffic congestion. He also spoke about a Smart Traffic System, through which cameras would monitor traffic and send messages to drivers recommending which roads to avoid. And let us not forget Malta’s proposal for €1.42 billion in EU funding for a monorail system.

But at the end of the day, sorting out the country’s traffic woes was one of the government’s leading electoral pledges and it is high time that the people start getting what they voted for in this respect.

Apart from the partisan finger-pointing and the perpetual political blame game lies an issue that crosses all political divides: traffic jams are ultimately democratic in the trials and tribulations they cause. They affect everyone irrespective of their political stripe – from schoolchildren to workers, from private vehicles users to public transport users, and from businesses to the government itself.

A problem of such national proportions requires a truly national solution, and it requires solutions that go beyond petty politics and blame games. 

The party in government that decongests the country’s roads will earn itself eternal brownie points from the electorate. It is hoped that a clear-eyed, holistic plan for the country’s traffic management will be unveiled, if not tomorrow, then very soon indeed.