Editorial: More roads mean more traffic  

Intuitively, it seems to make sense. When faced with increased traffic problems, especially traffic jams and overall congestion, the solution is simple – build more and bigger roads. Yet, the vast bulk of international research since the 1960s strongly suggests the opposite is the case. 

New, bigger and ‘improved’ roads generate new drivers and journeys, resulting not in reduced traffic intensity and congestion but in more of the same and often on an increased scale. Real world experience and consistent research shows this happens almost every time new roads are built.  

This occurs because new roads create what is termed ‘induced demand’. If it becomes easier, more efficient and, therefore, more attractive for drivers, then new and improved roads stimulate increased journeys and increase the number of ‘new’ drivers. This is especially so in societies and cultures that glorify the private car as a status symbol and the epitome of ‘efficiency’. We simply must seriously explore alternatives to our current ‘car-centric’ growth model, which is inefficient, damaging environmentally and unjust in that it gives priority in investment to one section of the (car-owning) population.

Recent experience in Malta suggests the same pattern. Despite increased expenditure in road building and upgrading in recent decades, our traffic problems have not been reduced but have instead increased. Traffic and congestion issues remain a top priority concern in national polls.

Environmental issues associated with such traffic problems have also become a priority concern for all, except perhaps our government. The government seems intent to ignore international and national evidence and insists that an expanded and ‘improved’ road network will resolve Malta’s problem.

Let us be clear: some of the new roads and junctions were desperately needed.

But government policy appears to be obsessed with road building to the detriment of other, necessary and desirable strands in any logical and joined-up strategy to plan for and manage the country’s transportation and environmental needs. 

Increasing private vehicle ownership and use is, self-evidently, not sustainable in a country the size of Malta where there are now 1,517 cars for every 1,000 drivers. Each household now has an average of 1.5 passenger cars. The total number of licensed vehicles has now topped 420,000 with a daily increase of around 30 new cars, a figure that continues to rise.

Such figures imply that the ways in which we have traditionally gone about addressing traffic jams through road building are essentially fruitless, and that a far broader and more encompassing policy is urgently needed. 

Substantial planning and investment in public transportation is needed on a scale not yet witnessed in Malta and one that goes beyond piecemeal and incomplete investment in buses and bus lanes. Given the scale of the problem, current and planned growth as well as the geography of the country strongly suggest the need for a mass transit system, reasonable restrictions on car use and incentives to mitigate restrictions.

It is immediately necessary to challenge the outdated thinking and policies and to insist that, following many recent major road projects, traffic routinely remains gridlocked on a routine basis. 

It is time to abandon the same expensive and failed solutions to traffic management and embrace a broader, more inclusive and sustainable approach. 

But this is not just down to the government. The challenge needs to be taken up by each and every car owner who needs to understand that change will only happen if we dare to change our commuting habits.