Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/736806
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 9 OCTOBER 2016 24 Opinion You think today's traffic is bad? Just you wait... I have a distinct memory of an episode of 'Xarabank' – and aptly was that TV show named, at least on this occasion – which discussed the traffic situation around 10-12 years ago. It was the early days of the Gonzi administration, when Austin Gatt was only just beginning to implement the public transport reforms that would later fail so spectacularly. Back then, the traffic situation was already intolerable enough to be worth a couple of hours of (equally chaotic) prime time TV debate. With hindsight, however, it was a breeze compared to what's happening now.... which in turn is nothing next to what we'll be experiencing in another 10 years' time. In any case: one of the speakers on that programme was the former head of the Public Transport Association, Victor Spiteri. Quoting a traffic management report issued a few years earlier, Spiteri predicted that Malta's road network would reach a point of "total gridlock in 10 years' time". My, my. What an interesting departure from the standard formula. For once, we had a prediction that turned out to be 100% accurate. It reminds me of that scene in Titanic, when the engineer retorts to the owner's observation that 'this ship can't sink'. "She's made of iron, sir, and I assure you she can," he bluntly said, before explaining how there could be no stopping the intake of water, once the first three ballast tanks had been filled. The analogy might seem far-fetched, but it isn't really. Replace 'water' with 'cars', and the ship's ballast tanks with Malta's roads, and the dilemma is in fact identical. There can be no stopping the annual influx of cars on the road in Malta. The people who make money out of importing cars are also among the people who keep Malta's sinking political establishment afloat, mostly through undeclared financial contributions of the kind which would be illegal anywhere else in Europe. Even if the political parties were swimming in money, it would be hopelessly unrealistic to expect them to cut off a vital revenue stream. As we all know, however – but don't talk about anywhere near enough – the two main political parties in Malta are actually broke, riddled with debt, and practically reduced to begging on the streets. How much less, therefore, can we expect them to do something about the one issue that will eventually sink the entire country? But back to Spiteri's comment. The truth of what he said was already self-evident 10 whole years ago. As with the Titanic, you don't need the ship to actually start its descent towards the seabed to know, with absolute certainty, that she will eventually sink. All you need is an elementary grasp of physics. The only difference between the two scenarios is that no one actually listened to Victor Spiteri. Well, almost no one. I listened. I even quoted that remark in an article at the time: asking what Malta planned to do to avert this catastrophe we could all see coming, if only we bothered to look. It was obvious to me then – and is even more so today – that Malta needed an alternative public transport system: one which, unlike the archaic bus service to which we seem to be condemned, does not make use of any roads at all. I wasn't the only one. Developer Angelo Xuereb even presented a plan for a circular railway system connected to a number of park-and-ride schemes on the periphery of towns and villages. It was a beautiful plan: symmetrical, logical, and – the best part of it – by obviating the need for cars to take you in or out of village centres, it might even have led to more pedestrian zones. So of course, he was laughed out of the room. We don't want logical, workable suggestions, thank you very much. We want to overload the system till it breaks, naturally... More recently still, a local company proposed an underground railway system, and applied for funding from the European Investment Bank. I remember this one in less detail; but again, it seemed targeted at resolving the actual issue at hand – alleviating car congestion on the road. I have heard nothing of this proposal since. Perhaps there is still a chance it might happen. But why have we heard nothing similar from the people whose job it is to manage traffic in Raphael Vassallo