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MT 5 October 2014

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TIM DIACONO THE Chair of the European Com- mittee on Transport and Tourism, Michael Cramer, criticised Malta for not taking the right steps to tackle its growing traffic problem. "Expanding road networks will only attract more cars to them and this will eventually destroy Mal- ta," the German Green MEP told MaltaToday. "Cars are murder- ing roads." His comments come after Fi- nance Minister Edward Sciclu- na defended the need for road expansion this week. "The best investment we can make is on our roads, because it makes traffic go faster and re- duces car congestion," Scicluna said, adding that faster transport routes can lead to lower busi- ness costs. But Cramer said that Malta has been try- ing to solve its traffic problems for the past 50 years but it's only getting worse. "The only solution is public transport. One bus can take the place of 80 cars. Yet Malta has largely done nothing to improve its public transport system." Cramer spent 15 years in Berlin's city-state parliament as the Greens' transport spokesman before joining the European Parliament. "In Berlin, one in every two house- holds doesn't own a car be- cause the pub- lic transport there is very e f f i c i e n t , " Cramer, a n o n - d r i v e r himself, said. "Malta needs to invest in its public transport system and introduce a tram or railway line." The most recent national statistics show that 329,053 motor vehicles are licensed in Malta, 58,000 more than were licensed in 2004. 252,547 of them are passenger vehicles. Sta- tistics website Index Mundi placed Malta in the top 10 countries with the highest rate of cars per person, behind only San Marino, Liechten- stein, Monaco, Luxembourg, Ice- land, Puerto Rico, Italy, and New Zealand. Cramer's fears were echoed by ar- chitect and Alternattiva Demokra- tika vice-chair Carmel Cacopardo. "Malta's car statistics are alarming and EU funds should not be allo- cated on road projects that will en- courage more people to use private cars," Cacopardo said. "We should encourage people to use public transport. Malta has ignored public transport for the past 50 years. "Scicluna is just throw- ing money at prob- lems." Former Nationalist Transport Minister Jesmond Mugliett seems to be cut from the same cloth as the Finance Minister. "Malta's road system shouldn't be sub-standard. If some streets need to be widened or if they are defined for upgrading by the 10-T network, we cannot leave them as they are," Mugliett told MaltaToday. "Some parts of the Trans-European Trans- port Network (10-T) like St An- drew's Road and Mistra Road are too narrow for traffic." "However, we can resolve a lot of our traffic problems simply by ar- ranging faulty junctions," Mugliett added. "There are a lot of junctions, such as in Marsa, Kappara and Xemxija, that cause bottlenecks." maltatoday, SUNDAY, 5 OCTOBER 2014 News More roads not the answer to Malta's traffic – Green MEP People you can trust Atlas Healthcare Insurance Agency Limited is authorized under the Insurance Intermediaries Act 2006, to act as agents for AXA PPP Healthcare Limited and is regulated by the Malta Financial Services Authority. The policies are underwritten by AXA PPP Healthcare Limited. Atlas Healthcare Insurance Agency Limited (Agents) Abate Rigord Street, Ta' Xbiex XBX 1121 Tel: 21 322 600 | Fax: 21 322 599 | email: health@atlas.com.mt Do something positive instead Subscribe online to the Atlas Healthcare Value Plus Policy Full refunds on the benefits you really need at a price you can afford atlas.com.mt How to waste a good 5 minutes Re-reading your Facebook wall Sipping your third (or fourth) coffee Browsing YouTube for cat videos Gossiping with friends about friends Chair of the European Committee on Transport says that expanding road networks will only encourage people to use private cars Michael Cramer Edward Scicluna

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