Erosion of quiet transport modes

Having laid the metro and other mass-transit ghosts of Christmases past to death, it is pretty clear it is now only by the altruistic or fortunate acts of individual drivers that we will free up road space for those who have no other choice but to sit in traffic.

Transport Malta has spent almost 20 years visiting schools and telling schoolchildren they should walk or cycle, if they can. All to help reduce car use. It is about time we gave those, now adult, drivers who want to the opportunity to do so.

Clearly a grant for a bike, without safer roads, is no longer enough of a baby carrot. A network of back or residential roads, as we used to have, would do.

The only way to attract individual short trip (sub- five kilometres) car commuters to switch now is to offer a safe alternative networked route. It is also the only way to attract back wider bike-share-scheme service providers. Remember international bike-share player, Nextbike, left the island, citing it was too unsafe. A recent clutch of car accidents that has paralysed the island in the run-up to Christmas seems to have underlined that.

Sitting in traffic has become a daily occurrence. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

Bolt and Bird scooters were never given the infrastructure they needed to comply with parking foot-scooters, nor a network of logical two-way streets to use them. Nextbike’s bike-share also struggled with a restricted operating area (as did GOTO), stifling an expansion of a much-needed wider network.

The recent loss of organic and designated ‘bike routes’ in Pembroke and right next door to Transform Malta’s own A3 Towers does not bode well either, with no-entry signs making connected routes off major and arterial roads impossible.

This has been the cherry on the cake as this quiet erosion of quiet transport modes has been going on for decades. Contraflows and bidirectional routes may be an answer to that, rather than remove on-street parking, ultimately the cause of the erosion.

Not only have we painted ourselves into a corner, with a thick sticky coat of congestion, each transport minister has added his own ‘second coat’, making it something incredibly difficult to strip back.

There’s a lot of catching up to do in 2025 to realise all the missed deadlines set out in the national transport strategy and transport master plan. A cycling strategy that sets out how to achieve or, rather, regain a national network, still under wraps, albeit, an organic one, needs to be top of the list. Perhaps after first revisiting the publishing of a proper cycling policy, rather than the facsimile of the consultation publicity blurb that we have now. And, no, do not put it out for consultation so it can be watered down and palatable.

Learn to manage. Learn to govern.

Importantly, now it’s time to ask those kids, who are now adults: “Do you still want to walk or cycle or would you rather sit in traffic?” If we are afraid to ask it, or if they are afraid to do it, hasn’t Transport Malta just wasted 20 years on a big fib?

It’s time for the theory to become practice, otherwise that theory is just a crock of moo pooh.

Jim Wightman - St Julian’s