Managing Victoria's traffic problems

Nationalist MP Frederick Azzopardi has called for the construction of a ring road around Victoria to enable traffic whose destination is not Victoria to get to their destinations more quickly and avoid unnecessary noise and pollution.

The Sunday Times has obtained the views of a number of personalities and individuals on the traffic situation in Victoria and is this week highlighting Mr Azzopardi's views and will publish the other views next week to enable an in-depth appraisal.

Mr Azzopardi said information from various traffic surveys indicates that most movements in the centre of town have origins or destinations, or both, in the capital. Although in the past 40 years a large number of circumferential streets have been opened between the radial routes, these are mainly short stretches and no attempt has been made to integrate them into some kind of outer or intermediate ring road.

The result is that traffic that has no real business in Victoria usually has no option but to pass through its centre. The continued increase in traffic congestion in Victoria represents a significant challenge to Gozitan society, he said.

If traffic congestion is not adequately addressed, it will likely result not only in a disturbing reduction in air quality due to pollution but also in increased travel times on an island that is roughly 70 km2 but can take a wildly disproportionate time to cross due to the Victoria bottleneck.

Mr Azzopardi said there are currently 23,705 registered motor vehicles in Gozo, dispersed among a population of 31,618. When compared, there are 749 registered vehicles per thousand population in Gozo as against 610 per thousand in Malta. This means that the rate of vehicle ownership is 40 per cent higher in Gozo. Apart from this, there is a daily influx of Maltese and foreign tourists.

At the height of the season there are an extra 4,500-5,000 vehicles on certain days. A high proportion of them are likely to be very active, trying to visit almost all parts of Gozo in a day and passing through Victoria several times in the process. In addition to these, a considerable number of tourists use public transport on fairly intensive tours as day trippers.

Victoria also houses the main administrative, educational, ecclesiastical and commercial centres in Gozo, the Citadel, one of Gozo's main tourist attractions, as well as Gozo's largest settlement.

Mr Azzopardi said planners must be both creative and practical in their suggestions for they are bound by parameters in their designs for solutions. The narrow streets of the town core are likely to be preserved through local plans policies, so it is unlikely that these streets shall be widened to ease the traffic flow.

The pedestrian population of the town core interferes with traffic flow through the town. Street markets and tourists are likely to increase, with a tendency to turn the town core into a restricted area for vehicles.

He explained that there is only one main street (Republic Street) and even part of this street is narrow, impeding smooth traffic flows. This is flanked on one side by the town core of a spider's web pattern of winding lanes around St George's Square and on the other by the steep hill of the Citadel.

Both areas are inaccessible to through vehicular traffic. The only other main streets for through traffic are Triq il-Vajringa and Triq il-Kappillan Hili. However, it would also be impossible to widen these streets since they are both residential.

These main streets are useful for the current traffic flow but this is already slow and will get even slower in future with the increase of population, vehicles and retail outlets. Not to mention the increasing problems of pollution and parking. This results in a lack of management and control, and a shortage of spaces at peak times in the most attractive locations.

There are a number of potentially very attractive public spaces in the urban conservation area, and embellishing them would be of great benefit to residents and visitors. These measures will facilitate improvements by removing or reducing traffic flows, and by providing alternative parking facilities.

"The ideal long term pattern of future roads would be a ring road around Victoria," Mr Azzopardi said. "This additional road capacity would provide a much quicker alternative for vehicles whose destination is other than Victoria.

"Critics of this idea have stated that when new routes are made available these too will in turn become congested. In reality, a variety of studies abroad have found that when additional road capacity is opened, the primary response of drivers is to shift to the new route from congested roads and create a more balanced flow of traffic.

"These studies also concluded that when new roads are opened, particularly in heavily-congested corridors, the new capacity tends to also fill up with additional traffic, although somewhat less than the proportion of new capacity," he explained.

A less ambitious and expensive alternative to the Victoria bypass could be a link between Triq Fortunato Mizzi and Marsalforn Road, Mr Azzopardi suggested. Further alternative routes could be introduced to divert vehicles leading to other destinations. Careful consideration should also be given to:

i) the construction of a road that links Triq ta' Wara s-Sur with the Capuchins area; and

ii) the establishment of a relief route between Triq l-Imgarr and Triq ix-Xewkija to allow motorists living in the southern part of Victoria and other villages to avoid the town centre.

Mr Azzopardi concluded: "Most of the current traffic problems are associated with circulating traffic, and poor design and control of key junctions. A number of highway improvements would provide suitable alternative routes to some motorists, and would reduce flows in the centre of Victoria.

"These would be complemented by junction improvements and revisions to the existing one-way system to control and improve circulation. A less congested Victoria could also lead to the possibility of having a pedestrian area in the centre."