I got my driver’s licence in 1992, just after I turned 18. I was living in Attard at the time and I distinctly recall the extraordinary sense of liberation and elation. I could now be as spontaneous as I liked. If I felt like driving to Riviera at midnight, or heading in the opposite direction toward Sliema, either way, I could be there in eight minutes flat. One of life’s simple pleasures? Infantile perhaps?
Maybe, but then happiness tends to be uncomplicated. This was independent living at last. I was no longer at the mercy of erratic bus schedules or bloody-minded bus drivers. Gone too was the touch-and go hitchhiking and those negotiated deals with disobliging parents. I was ready to put that behind me and begin a more ‘grown-up’ life.
The idea that life is cyclic is not new. Shakespeare’s ‘Seven Ages of Man’ makes the point that we all return to second childhood. Perhaps it’s because we secretly want to access our inner child and find joy in the simple things. Maybe it’s a question of wanting to square the circle and recover those fading memories.
I see it all the time from Facebook – rummaging through life’s bottom drawers as it were and dredging up old bus tickets, black and white photographs, bygone sweet and savoury wrappers, Peter and Jane books. The return to youth instantly provokes a thrill, an outpouring of nostalgia and excitement.
It’s the reason we are drawn to shops which have retained their original facades. Call it milk bottles over milk cartons or the creaking sound of an old fashioned fan sending you to a place that no air conditioning unit ever will.
I know I speak for practically everyone when I say that driving in 2019 is the opposite of liberating. It’s actually a chore – something many of us have come to dread.
We may not be conscious of them, but the physical and psychological stresses eventually take their toll. Studies have docu mented clear links between congestion and all manner of public health issues, including violent and aggressive behaviour, anxiety and social dysfunction. Stress has slowly crept up on me too.
I have therefore resolved not to use my car, unless I really have to (which does greatly curtail one’s social life). But being stuck in traffic and then failing to find parking are not things I want to have to deal with anymore. Besides, I concluded a while ago that I had absolutely no right to complain – let alone write about – Malta’s desperate traffic situation if I myself was part of the problem. So a year ago, I returned to the dependency of youth, the wonderful world of buses, and got myself a Tallinja card.
I’ve had my feet stepped on; I’ve been coughed at and sneezed on, and know at first hand when ‘push comes to shove’
To my surprise, it felt good, and yes, oddly liberating. Perhaps those bus journeys took me down memory lane to a time when life was less complicated and less weighed down by age. But there was also the grown-up realisation that owning a car was no longer the empowering experience it had once been.
Nowadays I work mainly from home. Where before I’d driven my car every day for multiple journeys, I now use it about three times a week, and only for single journeys. I’ve cut my driving time down by more than half.
For a year now I’ve caught the bus or ferry into Valletta; I’ve run errands on foot, especially in the Sliema, Gżira and St Julian’s areas, and – here’s the rub –I’ve refused to chauffeur my 19-year-old son (who mercifully, doesn’t drive).
Beyond a certain age, children don’t need to be picked up from here, there and everywhere. Public transport is free for teenagers so there’s no excuse. Unnecessary molly-coddling probably accounts for a hell of a lot of the traffic on our roads. So, if you’re one of those parents who ‘taxi’, at least have the decency not to bitch about traffic.
But as glorious and wonderful as those first few bus rides were, the honeymoon period eventually wore off. After my last bus ride – a week and a half ago – I am baulking at the prospect of renewing my now expired bus-card. And that’s not good. Because if someone as ‘out of the box’ and public spirited as me can’t make the switch to public transport, where does that leave everyone else?
To get people to leave their cars behind, public transport has got to make their lives a whole lot easier. The minute catching the bus fills you with as much – or more – dread as driving, it’s game over. And quite frankly, my last few journeys have been awful. I thought about writing to our Prime Minister and Transport Minister. But I’m writing it here instead.
A situation where there are more people standing on a bus than sitting does absolutely no favours. Boarding an already crowded bus is bad enough, but when the ordeal is compounded by more and more people being allowed on, enough is enough. There’s a limit to contortion and making yourself smaller.
In a nutshell, this isn’t travel for the faint-hearted. It’s not something you can go on doing forever. I’ve had my feet stepped on; I’ve been coughed at and sneezed on, and know at first hand when ‘push comes to shove’.
I have therefore vowed never to set foot on a bus until there are clear rules about the maximum number of passengers allowed standing. So more enforcement please, and hopefully more buses, more frequently, so that we all ‘stand’ a chance of sitting.
I’m hoping that some of those spanking new buses being added to our existing fleet will improve the Valletta-Sliema route and make it more comfortable. But I’m not convinced.
Besides, those new ‘protective screens’ separating drivers from passengers (to prevent assaults) don’t bode well for the reasonable citizen who already finds communication with drivers well-nigh impossible.
Drivers are mostly foreigners who don’t speak English or Maltese. Sadly, many seem completely cut off from what is going on. They drive off when passengers are still disembarking and fail to notice boarding from the back without paying.
Public transport has admittedly come a long way since 2013, and even before, when the population was much smaller. Yet there’s a lot of room for improvement. The aim should be to give Malta a state-of-the-art transportation system that will incentivise any sane driver to leave his car at home.
Right from the start, there has got to be a very material increase in carrying capacity. Because even if drivers are lite rally driven off the roads by financial penalties such as taxed parking, fines for single occupancy and the dreaded congestion charge, as things stand, public transport is not in a position to accommodate even the most public-spirited motorists who’ve left their cars at home.
Cultural shift is never easy, especially when self-interest and a strong sense of entitlement are involved. Perhaps it is time for Members of Parliament to lead by example. And perhaps the greatest penalty is to leave the roads as they are and to plough money saved into that state-of-the-art system.