Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/587664
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 18 OCTOBER 2015 17 ONLY fundamental improvements in pub- lic transport, coupled with the right mix of disincentives and incentives can alleviate the current spiralling of the traffic problem. So this is also a call for government to continue pouring more resources into this sector and enact bold and expensive measures, because the benefits of a free-flowing economy can still outweigh the costs of road stagnation. The Maltese case is simple enough: the daily rush hours that cause one to be late for work or class. Short-cuts are useless and, once you arrive, parking is impossible. In actual fact the problem only becomes unbearable during school terms, which indicates the root of the problem. It happens because everything starts and ends roughly at the same time, so roads are overwhelmed beyond their capacity at rush hour and calmer at other hours. Some roads can handle the added load but they would still lead to this one roundabout that can only handle 'X' amount of cars per minute. This makes a commute last 50 minutes when that same journey at a different hour normally takes 20 minutes. Population, affluence, infrastructure Why is it getting worse? Forget the increas- ing number of licensed cars: cars don't drive themselves (yet). Population has been on the rise for at least three decades. The same can be said for life expectancy. Our elderly con- tinue to be active, and drive, in their later years, and they may also need frequent trips to the hospitals. But it's also the immigration of expert staff by the successful gaming and financial sector as well as that of unskilled labour, that is a re- cent reality. These all acquire cars once suf- ficiently established in Malta. More people. More cars. GDP has been on a steady increase for the last two decades, and this has meant many things. More women joining the workforce have made the purchase and use of another car, ferrying children to school; specialised work- ers whose skills are not demanded within their town but in specific business hubs; more affluent households affording more cars, with kids turning 18 ditching the bus to use the oldest car in the family's possession. And yet our road infrastructure has not ex- panded in proportion. Our rudimentary bus system comes without any complementary bus lanes or mass rapid transit. Adequate bike lanes and automated road-use charges are also lacking. And last year's Eurobarometer surveys continued to confirm the hostility of the Maltese towards public transport mainly due to social stigma and quality of service. The repercussions are clear: wasted time, waste of fuel, harmful emissions, business costs, health costs and a quality of life made worse by visual and noise pollution. It's not just a Maltese phenomenon, but nearly all cit- ies have better developed coping mechanisms such as light and heavy rail, bike-sharing schemes, road charging, number plate bans, and car free zones. Is there no solution? There are many solutions to ease traffic congestion but they all suffer from signifi- cant drawbacks, not least the 'Triple Con- vergence Concept', which is what makes the problem so pervasive: Monday has been the usual crawling traf- fic situation we are so accustomed to nowa- days. Now imagine if on Tuesday the number of cars on the roads was halved so that traf- fic is flowing freely. This has happened be- cause overnight many drivers opted for alternative routes, al- ternative transport options (cy- cling and public transport) and avoided peak rush hours by adjust- ing their routines. By Wednesday the word was spreading that traffic is no longer a problem. On Thurs- day people start realising that they are wast- ing time using alternative routes, start missing their car's comforts compared to bicycles and buses, and realise that adjusting their routine to avoid rush hours is not practical. By Friday the traffic situation is back at square one – that of gridlock just like Mon- day. This kind of example can materialise in re- sponse to any traffic-alleviating measure: Expanding the road network Suffers from triple convergence and may induce more cars on the road from added capacity. Highly in- efficient if such infrastructure would only be used for 3-4 hours a day during peak hours and sits idle the remaining time. The same argument holds true against expensive capital projects such as underground trains systems. This type of infrastructure is only cost/km- feasible in cities with well over a million in population. Road charging and number plate bans Highly regressive and unfair on poorer peo- ple. That €1 charge to use that motorway is not the same for someone on minimum wage and someone being chauffeur driven. Same applies for number plate bans and well-off individuals affording more than one car. The same argument applies also to the recently mentioned policy of maintaining high fuel prices to act as a deterrent to car use. Public transport improvement The el- evated monorail would make sense along saturated roads and is still feasible cost-wise (unlike the underground train). However this and other improvements in the current bus service, on their own, will never equal the luxuries and service level of a car and there- fore would still lead to the triple convergence concept. There has to be a solution, surely? Ironically the act of queuing in traffic is still the most "efficient" and fair demand manage- ment system. But there are other solutions. 1. Incentives to use public transport: Im- proved routes, service and times; Ubiquitous priority lanes for buses; Maybe a decentral- ized system that uses nimbler minibuses to feed main bus lines to speed up the movement through narrower city cores. 2. We can incentivise less traffic-inducing transportation modes like priority lanes for bicycles and motorcycles; low or no registra- tion fees for motorcycles and no licences for 50cc or less just like Spain and Italy have been doing for decades; Bike sharing programmes as found in all major cities around the world; Frequent and cheap ferrying at sea given our densely urban harbour areas. 3. And we must also disincentivise car use: ban cars from city centres like the Valletta CVA, relegate sole-passenger cars to single, slow lanes at peak hours; and introduce elec- tronic road-pricing proportional to tax-de- clared income. There are caveats to any of these solutions. Motorcycles and bicycles are only feasible for a small minority; sea-ferrying is at the weath- er's discretion; earlier school start times raises many issues on the aspect of burdening the problem on children; often no road real-estate is available for priority lanes; forcing parents to send their children by bus could be challenged by those claiming some form of concession be- cause of bullying or health and safety; and hard approaches such as road-pricing and restrict- ing access to city centres is often seen as politi- cal suicide by the ruling party. But the formerly mentioned measures still constitute the low-hanging fruit, available to try and alleviate the traffic situation in the short to medium term. As a famous economist once said, "in the long-run we are all dead" – by that time self- driving cars and cheaper, faster infrastructure would probably be available… possibly less personal trips will be required as the economy continues to shift online. News A drop of rain and nothing moves. Once school starts, so many parents drive their children to school that our roads cannot cope. The situation is untenable and a solu- tion must be found. The Maltese always politicise a problem. The Opposition point their fingers at the present lot as if traffic moved smoothly three years ago. Hapless Joe Mizzi inherited a fail- ure from the previous minister who presided over a very expensive change in public trans- port that was heralded to be the best thing since Moses parted the sea. That public transport system was a failure, but what else would you expect from somebody who had no experience of running a public transport service other than to claim that he had a fet- ish for buses? Labour has proposed solutions not suited to Malta – neither a bridge to Gozo, nor an underground system or even a monorail are feasible, still less affordable, as they are mass transit systems. But this small country lacks the 'mass', and these are not my words but those of a transport systems expert who was commissioned by the Public Transport Au- thority in the early 1990s when an under- ground was first proposed by yet another developer. The main problem is the Maltese public's love affair with cars. In September 2014 there were 329,053 cars on the road, increasing by 28 every day. No wonder we are in gridlock. Matters are made worse by the large number of foreign cars (mostly Italian and Libyan) which are only allowed on our roads for six months, after which they are supposed to pay local tax and change to Maltese number plates; however they are unregulated, enjoy- ing the freedom of our roads with impunity and belching dangerous pollutants into the air we breathe. Equally important is the fact that many of us do not walk as people walk in other coun- tries; more harbour ferries will only relieve the congestion if people walked to them rather than driving and expecting to find a parking space nearby. The dangerous levels of pollution must re- ceive equal attention, because it is contribut- ing to the early death of many of our citizens as well as costing Malta €274 million per an- num: the fine particulate matter and nitrous oxide generated by diesel engines contribute to respiratory and heart disease, cancer and dementia. Far from being a sign of "progress", this negative effect on the health of our population must be given urgent priority by our govern- ment which is responsible for our health, and not just for gran- diose, pre-election Pharaonic projects. Proposals The government's first priority needs to be a study showing the public the real cost of every car trip we take and comparing that to the cost of using public transport. Secondly, MEPA must seriously measure pollution levels. Is it true that the pollution measuring-tube in St Anne's Street in Flori- ana is no longer there? This is MEPA's moral and legal responsibility. It would be interest- ing to see some transparency from MEPA on this matter and advise the public as to the real situation. Flawed VRT monitoring is allowing many sub-standard cars onto our roads; the system must be rigidly scrutinised to ensure that such cars are taken off the roads. For years, evidence that VRT station operators are breaking monitoring regulations has been ignored. Similarly the importation of second-hand cars which do not comply with the require- ments of new imported vehicles makes a mockery of European emission regulations and must stop. The importation of old, often scrapped engines to re-engine old trucks is a chargeable offence due to the unimagina- ble pollution they emit – a danger to public health which the authorities are duty bound to protect despite the possible threat to their votes. Transport systems must change, but instead of proposing impractical, grandiose plans like drilling down for metro systems (which would grind to a halt every time archaeology is found) we need smaller, workable solu- tions. People don't use public transport be- cause it takes so long to arrive and may be distant from their homes or places of work. So one solution would be to provide a fleet of electric mini-vans that run more frequently, covering a greater network of routes. This should form part of this country's contribu- tion towards the public transport system. Many parents choose to drive their children to school because of the high cost of school transport. The recent proposal to subsidise school transport made sense and should be implemented, however where distances are short, children should walk to school as they do in other parts of the world. It will also be a healthy change and possibly reduce Malta's record of having the highest rate of child- hood obesity. Traffic in Malta has developed over years of incompetent planning and political med- dling. It's still to taboo to suggest that park- ing in city-centres should be paid for, even though it would decrease cars in these cen- tres. I don't think there's any other country in the world where parking on public roads is free. The present situation is untenable and cou- rageous steps need to be taken. They may un- popular in the short term, but they will give the required results. Neville Zammit is reading for a Masters in environmental economics Addressing traffic is neither cheap, nor straightforward Ing. Paul Cardona is chairman of Flimkien ghal-Ambjent Ahjar Small, workable solutions not Pharaonic projects