Transport Minister Chris Bonett has dozens of ideas on how to ease Malta’s traffic woes but admits he will not be implementing any of them until at least April because “we must get this right”.

In an interview with Times of Malta, Bonett said he is considering a series of ideas, including allowing people to forfeit their driving licence for a financial incentive and disincentivising young people from learning to drive.

He is also keen on increasing the use of ferries and is mulling a bus rapid transit system.

Speaking days before the school rush starts again, the man at the helm of the transport and infrastructure super-ministry said that after eight months in the job he is prepared to start discussing ways to implement concrete measures to ease traffic.

“It’s time we considered schemes that would allow people to [voluntarily] forfeit their driving licence in return for a financial or tax incentive. We are considering that,” he said.

“We’re also considering having number plates that allow you to drive your car during certain days and times or that you are charged for driving according to the distance you cover or the emissions you produce on certain days and times.”

He is also considering discouraging young people from getting a licence in the first place by paying for a number of their cab rides, for instance.

People hate getting stuck in traffic with Y-plate cabs, he said, but then they also appear to like the service, and the country needs to figure out how to make the best use of it.

The PN had proposed a similar measure in its 2022 electoral manifesto by giving a €10,000 grant over five years to families who ditch their car and do not buy another vehicle.

Unconvinced about the metro, sea transport under-utuilised

Bonett is unconvinced the underground metro would be the best mass transportation system. Rather, he is keener on making better use of the sea, which he described as the “biggest and most underutilised resource”.

“Since we made the Valletta ferries free of charge, we saw the number of passengers rise beyond what we had projected. The service is very popular among locals as well as tourists,” he said.

“We can extend the service to Buġibba, for instance, where we are ahead of time to complete the new breakwater project. We are constructing a ferry landing there, which will allow us to start operating the service to and from there as well.

“And we can do that in other places along the northern and eastern coast, like Marsaxlokk and all the way up to Mellieħa.”

The Buġibba project, which Infrastructure Malta says is 70 per cent completed, has seen the construction of a new 37-metre pier that will serve to reduce wave impact in the bay, providing increased protection for fishing boats and other small vessels that dock in the area.

Once completed, the breakwater will also feature mooring facilities and safer platforms for passenger ferries that make use of the area.

Marrying land and sea mass transport would also allow the government to then introduce a bus rapid transit system, a service similar to rail-based transit but operates with buses that drive in exclusive lanes, separate from general traffic.

“They would stop at stations from where you can then take smaller, feeder buses that take you to village centres,” he said.

But he will not roll out any measures just yet.

He said he first needs to consult with local councils, NGOs, the opposition and all other stakeholders to make sure the measures do not impact residents, businesses, workers and employers negatively.

This consultation process will take another four to six months before he is ready to announce the first short-term measure around April.

“We must get this right,” he insisted when asked why he was going to let people deal with the current situation for that much longer.

“When I was appointed minister I couldn’t just sit in my chair and start taking decisions right away. I needed to listen to people and their suggestions. I also want the opposition in this discussion.”

Freeport to Gozo

One measure suggested by the Malta Maritime Forum might be quite costly, Bonett admitted, but he believes its positive social impact could be worth the hefty price.

The measure would see cargo ships transport freight to Gozo directly from the Freeport. This would mean all goods bound for Gozo making it to the sister island without trucks having to transport them all the way from Birżebbuġa to Ċirkewwa.

“On paper, that will be expensive. Ships are always expensive. But the positive social impact it could have might make it worth it,” he said.

“As with all the other measures, we have to dive deep into it and see what works best.”

During the interview, Bonett revealed the government was considering building car parks on the outskirts of the busiest localities, like Mosta, Birkir­kara, Paola, Sliema and Qormi – and provide a park-and-ride service to non-residents.

It worked in Valletta, and there is no reason why it should not work elsewhere, he said. It would also ensure residents have more parking spaces in that locality.

“Ultimately, I can roll out many measures to reduce cars, but if I don’t offer alternative transport, the cars will remain,” he said.

“And there’s another thing – even if I do offer the alternatives, how do I know people will not still use their car?”

He could not promise people will see or feel the difference of any measure on day one, and no single measure can solve all the problems.

“We can’t implement measures in isolation. That’s the mistake we did in the past,” he admitted.

“Hoping we will ever get to a point when we never get stuck in traffic is a fantasy. We are obsessed with cars, me included, and like everybody else, I must be part of the solution.”

Unimplemented solutions

His predecessors were also keen on implementing solutions.

In an interview with Times of Malta early last year, then-transport minister Aaron Farrugia acknowledged the bus service was inefficient, and said one solution could be to dedicate entire lanes on major arteries just for buses, drastically improving their efficiency.

That idea was never implemented, and his successor is not keen on making it happen either.

“I’m from Gżira, and when a bus lane was introduced for the first time there, it was chaotic,” he said.

“I don’t agree with it in principle, because as it stands, closing existing lanes will create bottlenecks and make the situation worse.”

Another measure that is off the table for Bonett is a traffic management strategy where vehicles with a specific number plate are prohibited from driving on certain days and times.

In cities that implemented it, the restriction typically alternates between even and odd-numbered plates, allowing drivers to use their cars on alternate days.

“I don’t agree with that. I think it’s unproductive,” Bonett said, shooting it down.

‘Losing some sleep’

With days to go before schools start again, Bonett said he is “losing some sleep” during this period, knowing the next few weeks will inevitably be challenging.

He said Transport Malta will increase enforcement officers on the roads to direct traffic, and Infrastructure Malta will be pausing non-urgent, non-essential road works for a few weeks.

There are other measures, however, that can be implemented relatively quickly, Bonett said.

People often legitimately complain that the government should be better organised in roadworks, he said, and promised he would optimise his resources to achieve that.

One of those measures is to carry out roadworks at night, which has already been implemented wherever possible.

“We have a growing economy that we only operate for 12 hours. It’s time we explore how we spread delivery services and government works throughout the day,” he said.

But he is not the first Labour minister to promise this. Aaron Farrugia had suggested a major overhaul of multiple services and activities that have traditionally occurred in the morning, causing traffic jams during rush hour.

Government workers would report for duty at different hours of the morning, and hospital outpatient appointments would be scheduled throughout the day, he had pledged.

The strategy remains largely unimplemented.

“I knew you’d ask me that. You cannot just wake up one morning and change the way businesses work,” he said, adding he still believed it could be achieved.

Landscaping or road cleaning does not necessarily have to happen in the early morning rush hour, he said, and not all services must go nocturnal, either.

Praising the work of his predecessors, he said that were it were not for Ian Borg’s initiative to widen arterial roads and build flyovers, especially the Marsa junction, people would be stuck in far worse traffic today.

‘Time to build roads differently’

However, it is now time to build roads differently, he insisted. Infrastructure Malta cannot just be the roads agency. Rather, it must become part of the government’s wider plan to make villages and public spaces greener and cleaner.

He said he appointed former Project Green CEO Steve Ellul to head the mammoth agency because he has already worked on this vision.

The first major measure on Ellul’s watch was rolled out last week – a €10 million fund to make streets people-friendly.

This means that Joseph Muscat’s 2017 promise to rebuild all of Malta’s residential streets must be rethought, as people clearly want the government to tackle infrastructure differently.

“Take the Msida creek project, which will start in November. It is often banalised as simply a flyover, but that’s only a part of it,” he said.

“The bigger part of the project is the embellishment of the whole area – the new church square, cycle lanes, the water canal that will mitigate the long-standing flooding problem and the boċċi club, among others.”

What about corruption?

Bonett’s ministry has previously been plagued by corruption allegations, especially at Transport Malta.

Asked whether he can guarantee no corruption on his watch, he said: “Two people in the garden of Eden also made a mistake, and they were just two people. I can’t guarantee that nobody in such a big organisation is doing absolutely anything wrong. Everybody begins with 100 per cent trust with me. If they start to misbehave, they start losing my trust.

“But I learned that when there are a lot of people working in a place, wrongdoing can happen. There are 900 people working at Transport Malta and I’m disappointed to see a few of them taint the reputation of all the others who do good work and want to serve and love their country.”