PN unveils its €1.4 billion, five-year metro plan

An underground rail line between the airport and Pembroke will be up and running within five years and cost €1.4 billion, the Nationalist Party pledged on Friday. 

The PN unveiled its mass transport system roadmap at a press conference led by party leader Alex Borg, who was flanked by candidates Adrian Delia and Julian Borg. 

The PN proposal involves using tunnel boring machines to excavate underground without requiring ground-level works, save for at eight metro stations along the proposed 11.5km-long line. 

It says the cost can be partially covered through 30 per cent EU financing, with the remaining expense being covered through loans. 

“Our country cannot continue like this,” Borg said. “Traffic is not just an inconvenience but a burden on the quality of life of the Maltese and Gozitan population.”

He insisted this is not a PR exercise on the eve of an election but a holistic plan to solve the issue “once and for all”.

Borg said most people in Malta choose to use a car because it’s the only viable transport option. He cited a study that showed traffic is costing the country €770 million.

“We want a solution that creates new capacity without creating disorder," Borg said, as he explained the rationale behind planning most of the system underground. 

Details of the PN plan

Julian Borg, an architect and PN candidate, gave a technical review of the works. He said the first line will run 11.5km across eight stations. There will be eight trips an hour, with a seven-minute waiting time between each journey.

The route will start at the airport, which will also be one of the principal hubs of the project, and end at Pembroke.

Stops along the way will include: St Vincent De Paul, Qormi, Mater Dei and University of Malta, Gżira, Sliema and St Julian’s.

Borg said a PN government would set up an implementation unit that would report to the cabinet within its first 100 days in office.

This unit will be responsible for creating a technical baseline report, pre-market engagement and a procurement roadmap.

Within three months, the statutory processes of design, permitting and procurement can kick off. Borg said this will take 14 months.

After 17 months of operation, the implementation unit will focus on shop drawings and start work on the various stations along the line. After 29 months, boring and surfacing works will start on the tunnel itself, and after 43 months it will focus on signalling and rail services.

Borg said the project will be subject to various geological and environmental studies.

Construction waste generated will be able to be used in other projects, he said, citing the expansion of the Malta Freeport as a case in point. 

The underground line will be the backbone of a wider mobility project by the PN. Various stations and hubs serve as changeover points where people can shift to other transport modes, be they buses, shuttles, taxis, ferries or park-and-ride systems.

Since the metro line will only cover a limited part of Malta, Borg said feeder routes will help make the line more accessible.

Delia: ‘A light at the end of the tunnel’

Delia joked that Borg’s presentation is like “a light at the end of the tunnel”. He said as finance minister, he would sign off on a project like this because the numbers make sense.

Before going into the costs of the project, he said the first question must be about how much it costs to do nothing about the problem. “We pay for that in lost time, lost productivity,” he said.

He said lost productivity could almost reach €900 million a year, or 4% of GDP. “The cost of doing nothing is already being paid,” he said.

Overall, the first line will cost €1.4 billion. Around 30% of the costs will be financed through EU funds, over and above any money that Malta can tap into through the cohesion fund.

The PN will also seek funding through various financial instruments and the Malta Development Bank. Delia said the financing costs will amount to around €34.5 million a year across 40 years.

The rail will be free for residents, but tourists will have to pay for the service.

The PN also envisages a second line that will be built once the first line is completed. The second line is estimated to cost €2.5 billion.