Consider bus routes on secondary roads

It is worth considering all transport options, including an underground metro, but we shouldn’t overlook simpler ones.

Malta has few main roads but plenty of side roads and buses could easily shift to travelling on secondary roads.

One solution could be to limit these secondary routes to buses and, possibly, only resident vehicles. Electric buses are, of course, welcome to prevent air pollution.

Although the route to travel will be longer, it will be faster. As one billboard sign put it: “Take the longer route. Quicker.”

Having buses run on time would be a huge breakthrough and an incentive for commuters. People will not hesitate to pay a justified fee for a great service that is punctual but will not switch to a free but unpredictable service (costing them time and, therefore, money).

The added benefit of dedicating secondary routes to buses is that this automatically frees up main roads from the frequent and incessant pile-ups and bottlenecks that accompany any bus at most stops. Sometimes, even just driving behind a moving bus can be disheartening.

Problem solved.

In this day and age, our country surely enjoys enough data to study a computer simulated model of this proposal, or variants of it. One might even partner with Google, who are more than equipped for the task.

If it turns out to be as good as it sounds, we may in the future refine the routes to iron out any intersections with main roads to reduce even further any glitches impacting punctuality.

Then, once all intersections are addressed, we would have effectively crafted out a fully-dedicated bus route on the existing road network, which would be a good point to question whether to replace buses with electric trams for that ‘metro’ boost.

I’m sure I’m not alone in sincerely hoping that the motivation behind the ginormous and never-ending (20 years?) risk-riddled underground metro project is not simply a means for the government to keep certain industries (individuals?) afloat by guaranteeing a steady flow of expenditure for years to come.

Consider other proposals first. This particular one appears to be much quicker to implement, much less costly, certainly greener, utilises the existing infrastructure, or almost, increases timeliness of service, frees up main roads from buses and is upgradeable to an above-ground metro in probably less than 20 years.

Where’s the catch?

Richard Borg – Birkirkara

Capricious criticism and serious academic research

Charles Gauci’s personal opinion about particular selected points from my 420-page book on the Maltese collective memory of the French after 1798 (October 17) appears to fall into the category of capricious criticism.

Scientific and sociological investigation in serious academic research cites sources and discusses their pertinence to the subject under review to present valid views. Final judgement is left to intelligent readers.

History, like the media, can only give more versions of the truth, as whatever is recounted is always inevitably mediated.

Gauci alleges that my investigation is “pro-French, anti-Maltese, anti-clerical and/or anti-British” without realising that most of the 1798-1800 narrative that I had to dispute for distortions and manipulation has overtly been related in the opposite drift.

Besides Gaetano Gauci’s 1899 relation of the bestial massacre of French soldiers and Maltese sympathisers in Mdina, in my volume readers can also find Giovanni Faure’s 1913 reproduction of an eyewitness report of Michiel ta Cozzu describing it as “l’infami massacre”. Oddly enough (was it deliberate?), the story of the peasants’ insurrection in the Maltese language only started to appear after 1862. Correspondent doubts the veracity of the event because, he alleges, it was “Fabricated” long after its happening. Obviously,  he does not know that this callous behaviour in Mdina was already well known in the 1830s. Malta’s French consul Miège recorded the French garrison as having been assaulted heavily in 1798 and firent subir à leurs cadavres les plus cruels outrages. In his 1840 Paris publication of Histoire de Malte (pp. 209), the consul quotes a report from the French newspaper Le Moniteur of November 15, 1800, merely two years after the massacre. British governor Frederick Ponsonby had encouraged Miège to write this three-volume well-researched history of Malta. 

Lastly, the correspondent mocks this account as a fable without reflecting upon the myth of “heroic ancestors” that we were made to accept as true in order to cover up conceivable misdeeds by irresponsible leaders who conceitedly caused the death of 10,000 Maltese victims whose sacrifice left the community poorer and ignorant.

To persist in protecting their medieval privileges, political ecclesiastics, country traders and the old noblesse humiliated chivalric Malta into becoming a naval outpost colony, terminating all rights of self-rule.

Contrary to Gauci, academician Anthony Aquilina, in reviewing my study (November 16, 2014) found that “Xuereb’s approach is that of the investigative journalist, scrutinising the veracity of textual data, dissecting every bit of information related by foreign and Maltese eyewitnesses, biographers and narrators”.

Charles Xuereb – Sliema

Views still valid, 23 years later

I would like to express my satisfaction with Kristina Chetcuti’s article (October 17) where she referred to an interview Daphne Caruana Galizia Daphne had given me on June 10, 1998.

Quite rightly, Chetcuti starts by crediting the Finnish broadcasting company, where I was then employed in the IT section. Being the only Maltese employee, I had taken the initiative to conduct a series of audio interviews of Maltese personalities.

The particular interview was eventually offered to Manuel Delia’s podcast a year ago to coincide with the anniversary of Daphne’s untimely and violent end.

A shame that Malta has to live with for God knows how long.

Each year, I have been present at the yearly vigil, except in 2020, due to travel restrictions. I was present at the vigil last week and, having listened to Pia Zammit’s passionate talk, it strengthened my realisation of how lucky I was to have Daphne’s views recorded for posterity.

As Kristina writes, the views expressed 23 years ago are still valid today as they were then.

Eddie Iles – Marsascala/Helsinki

Protecting our open land

Every day, more and more people are realising the importance of preserving Malta’s open land, much of which is in a poor state.

To embellish such land means replacing eroded soil, removing debris and rocks and irrigation. The many field walls that have already been improved must be commended. Many people, including experts, think afforestation of much of this land is a good idea.

It has been pointed out that, although Malta was once largely forested, it does have other types of natural vegetation, such as garigue, which should be left to their natural evolution.

Recovering our farmland will do much to avoid the erosion of the environment, which is now troubling the entire world.

I hope the advice of experts and government funding will lead to a great improvement in the Maltese landscape, for us and future generations.

Christopher John Linskill – Ħamrun