Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1065920
14 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 23 DECEMBER 2018 NEWS ANALYSIS Malta'stransport conundrum What alternative routes to sustainable mobility? SUZANNE MAAS IF you've spent some time on the road in the past few months (and well, who hasn't?), bright orange signs cheekily advis- ing to 'seek alternative routes' couldn't have escaped you. These alternative routes are meant as a solution to avoid- ing the many road closures, blockages, and general havoc caused by a massive road wid- ening exercise brought about by the government in a feeble attempt to solve disastrous gridlock on our islands' roads. This gridlock takes a toll on our health. More often than not, the air pollution in the areas around the harbours is palpable. According to the European Environmental Agency's latest report on air quality, the emissions of par- ticulate matter, nitrogen ox- ides and ozone have increased in Malta in the past few years, largely due to road transport, and that contributes to prema- ture deaths as a result of heart and lung disease. The Environ- ment and Resources Author- ity (ERA) recently published the State of the Environment report which confirms that students in classrooms facing roads suffer from a higher rate of respiratory conditions. The irony is that children are being taken to school by car because it would be too dangerous to walk, scoot or cycle. Why do we need to move away from car dependence? Promoting only one mode of transport, and improving in- frastructure solely for the car, deepens our car dependence and excludes everyone else outside the car. It is becom- ing increasingly difficult to live without a car, with road space being taken away from more sustainable modes (through the removal of dedicated bus, cycle lanes and even pave- ments). The growing network of busy roads makes crossing them a challenge and severs communities. A car-depend- ent society effectively excludes those who cannot afford a car, or cannot drive one due to age, disability, choice or affordabil- ity. Thus, a fair and equitable transport system should serve everyone, not just those in a position to own and drive a car. In a country where space is at a premium, how can we accept the occupation of so much public space by private property? As Donald Shoup, professor in urban planning, states in his book 'The High Cost of Free Parking', cars are parked over 95% of the time. Because of omnipresent and haphazard parking, soft modes of transport, such as walking and cycling, become increas- ingly difficult and unpleasant. Millions upon millions of eu- ros are being spent on widen- ing the roads: €17 million for additional road space in Mar- sa, Żebbuġ and Luqa, among others. Add to that €7 million for the upgrading and widen- ing of Regional Road, and a projected €55 million for the Central Link project. The list goes on. The Ministry for Transport and Infrastructure, and the newly established agency In- frastructure Malta, are proud- ly throwing these numbers around as if they were confetti. All the while, we know that this strategy will not be effective in the long run: with the number of cars on the roads steadily in- creasing at the rate of 33 vehi- cles per day, they will soon fill up the additional created space and get stuck in further bottle- necks. This concern was also raised by the Ombudsman's Environment Commissioner a few weeks ago in his reaction to the publication of the latest State of the Environment Re- port. Before the public even gets a chance to discuss whether these projects would truly im- prove our quality of life, the fresh tarmac is already laid. The road works at Tal-Balal are taking place without a PA permit, let alone a public consultation process. Strate- gic planning documents – the Malta Transport Plan 2025, the Malta Transport Strategy 2050, and the Strategic Plan for Environment and Develop- ment (SPED) – that are sup- posed to guide infrastructural projects of this scale, are bla- tantly ignored. In addition, we are paying (a comparatively meagre, but not insignificant sum) near €200,000 a year for not meeting our emission re- duction targets. At the same time, the government an- nounced that phasing out of diesel and petrol cars in order to meet greenhouse gas emis- sion reductions, as per the Paris climate agreement, is in the pipeline, with a study on different scenarios underway. This begs a question: why therefore spend all those pub- lic funds on further fuelling our car dependence? While many of us often think of Malta as a special place, with respect to transport it isn't special. Every western city, even those now renowned for their public transport systems and pedestrian and cycling in- frastructures, once grappled with the same issues: streets clogged with cars, illegal park- ing on sidewalks and air pollu- tion… Sounds familiar, right? While the context behind the models adopted by Copenha- gen and Amsterdam may be different to that of Malta, there are also admirable examples closer to home. In Seville, for example, the number of trips by cyclists grew five-fold in three years, following the introduction of a bicycle-sharing system and the creation of dedicated cycling infrastructure. In an effort to reduce pollution and emis- sions from cars, Bologna opted for the innovative approach which rewards citizens for choosing green travel modes— walking, cycling or using pub- lic transport—with free beer, ice-cream or cinema tickets. The Spanish town Pontevedra successfully removed most of the cars from the city centre, turning it into a pedestrian ha- ven with cleaner air, reduced emissions, and a thriving hub for small, local businesses. Examples from these cities show that investing in pub- lic and active transport can achieve three goals simultane- ously: first, it can move more people more efficiently; second – free the road space for more socially and environmentally beneficial modes of transport; and third, it can lower local health and environment con- cerns. Suggestions: transport for everyone Why not use public funds to invest in an alternative transport future? Rather than short-term non-solutions like road-widening measures, we need to imagine an alternative pathway; a route to sustainable mobility that will serve every- one. There are plenty of poten- tial solutions out there. In many countries, the back- bone of public transport, the bus, has been reinvented in recent years. Bus Rapid Tran- sit (BRT) systems, which have been popularised in north and south America, are high capac- ity, fast and frequent bus ser- vices that operate using dedi- cated bus lanes and boarding platforms, off-board fare col- lection, smartcard payments, and sleek design and market- ing campaigns. The most fa- mous BRT system is probably the TransMilenio in Bogotá, Colombia, which transports tens of thousands of passen- gers per hour in each direc- tion on its busiest corridor. Together with the investment in a city-wide cycling network, Bogotá's BRT is hailed as a shining example of how inte- We all need access to education, work, healthcare, goods and services. We should therefore look at designing a transport system that provides equitable, affordable and efficient mobility options – truly a public transport