The design of Malta's road network favours car ownership over anything else. This bias results in traffic congestion, pollution, unsafe streets, and a declining quality of life. Government policy remains contradictory: paying lip service to sustainable transport goals while continuing to prioritise new roads and road widening and pushing people and all sustainable forms of mobility off the roads. The pedestrian bridges mushrooming all over major roads convey a clear message: most public space is not for people but for cars.
Pedestrians are often forced off pavements, generally due to the encroachment of catering establishments, consequently being exposed to danger and reduced accessibility for vulnerable groups. Tables and chairs are welcomed: vulnerable persons are squeezed out. Business friendly? How about being people friendly, for a change?
The smallness of these islands, with practically everywhere being within easy reach should have been a perennial bonus for transport planners. Local and regional transport should have been identified ages ago as being the most practical of solutions, which, together with pedestrianisation and cycle lanes could have provided the easiest and cheapest solution to get people around efficiently all day long around most of the islands.
This has been continuously ignored over the years and instead we have been lumped with a car-centric infrastructure, a major local contributor to climate change impacts.
We need to facilitate a modal shift in our mobility. Our mobility habits must change the soonest. This is essential if any real improvement in mobility-induced quality of life is to be registered. To be very blunt, dependency on private cars must be substantially reduced. There are suitable and sustainable options which we can easily make use of.
At ADPD the Green Party we consider it essential to formulate a comprehensive sustainable transport strategy built on five points: redesigning our streets, use of public transport, actively discouraging private car use, defending public space and the alignment of transport policy with other policy areas.
Our streets need to be redesigned in order that pedestrians and cyclists have priority over cars. This would include wider, unobstructed pavements, safe crossings at street level, protected cycling infrastructure, and traffic calming measures in residential areas.
Investing heavily in efficient, reliable, and accessible public transport is essential. Just having free public transport is not enough. Its competition must not be subsidised, otherwise what is the use of public transport being free? Public transport must become the backbone of the mobility infrastructure, supported by dedicated bus lanes and integrated systems that make it a viable alternative to private car use. We propose a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system. This is the most practical, cost-effective solution for national traffic issues, centred on dedicated lanes, priority at intersections, and increased capacity. This proposal emphasizes reclaiming road space from private cars in order to provide faster, reliable public transit, as a result tackling chronic traffic congestion.
Policies that actively reduce car dependency must be implemented. In addition to shifting priority to public transport, all the way, this would include discouraging excessive parking provision for private cars and promoting alternative and safe commuting options including e-bicycles, e-scooters and also shared mobility solutions. Unfortunately, short-sightedly, these modes of mobility are being pushed off our streets.
Public space must remain truly public. The takeover of pavements, primarily by the catering industry, should stop immediately.
Transport policy must be aligned with other policy areas, most importantly with climate and public health policies. A shift towards sustainable mobility will not only reduce emissions but will also improve physical and mental well-being.
Our communities have the right to be prioritised before cars. Transport policies must serve to ensure the active and sustainable mobility of our communities. This can only be done by delivering the changes which help in encouraging the behavioural change we so desperately need. This was emphasised by the advice government received over the years, which advice contained in a National Transport Masterplan funded by EU funds it repeatedly ignored.
Policies help but at the end of the day it is our behaviour which must change. Fifty per cent of private cars are used for very small distances taking less than fifteen minutes. These trips can easily be covered in a multitude of other ways. We have solutions. We must use them. It is in our long-term interest.
An architect and civil engineer, the author is a former Chairperson of ADPD-The Green Party in Malta. [email protected] , http://carmelcacopardo.wordpress.com