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 this country? The objection to Xuereb’s plan, as I recall, was that the partial underground system he proposed (coupled with an overhead monorail) was ‘unfeasible’, ‘impractical’, and so on. Strangely, however, both Nationalist and Labour governments responded far more favourably to suggestions of a tunnel or bridge to Gozo.

Try working that one out. Drilling a 3km+ tunnel under the seabed? When geologists warn that the strata of rock on Gozo’s southern ridge is riddled with faults? That’s perfectly doable. But utilising and expanding an already-existing tunnel network, to create a combination of underground/overhead railway systems... that, naturally, is the stuff of fantasy. Something only unrealistic environmentalists would dream up, when they’re not too busy hugging trees...

Hardly surprising, then, that we would fail to ever even approach our national traffic problem, let alone solve it. Because let’s be blunt about something. What did successive governments actually do to alleviate traffic in the last 10 years? Did they introduce any alternatives for mass transit? Oh sure, they might have reinstated boat rides from Sliema/Birgu to Valletta… and a good thing that was too. But on a national level... what major changes to the present infrastructure have we actually introduced?

Let’s see now. Gonzi’s idea was to utilise the Armed Forces to direct traffic at peak hours. But unless the AFM used heavy artillery to actually blow up cars and trucks... I fail to see how that could make any difference to the number of cars on the road. As with practically all Gonzi’s other failures, his approach to traffic was management-by-crisis. And as we can all see, it didn’t work.

Well, these guys went one better. Their approach is to simply admit that the problem is beyond their capacity to solve. Transport Minister Joe Mizzi even told us not to expect ‘miracles’. As if it would require Divine Intervention for a government to effectively tackle a national problem, and come up with an innovative solution.

Sorry, Mr Mizzi, but we don’t expect miracles. All we expect is for you to the job you are paid to do from the public purse. But then, I guess that really would be miraculous, in a manner of speaking... 

All this goes to show how the problem was allowed to escalate to national emergency proportions in the first place. And that, I fear, is no exaggeration. This week, an Air Malta flight was delayed because pilots got stuck in traffic. I’ll leave it to you to picture what this country will be reduced to, if that becomes a daily, inevitable occurrence – which it will, I assure you. As sure as that ship was made of iron...

So, to recap: 10 years after the PTA president warned us all that we would be in precisely this mess today, every administration of government simply ignored the problem and allowed it to fester uncontrolled. They pooh-poohed ingenious, far-sighted solutions presented to them on a silver platter by the private sector; they doggedly stuck to a failed public transport system (and even, incredibly, managed to make it worse). And that is not even the half of it.

All governments since that fateful warning – but none more than the present – have also embarked on a foolish, uncontrolled and unplanned development spree, that will very soon make today’s unbearable traffic situation look like a motorist’s paradise. 

In the case of the recent Townsquare project in Sliema – approved by the Planning Authority last August – the Transport Impact Assessment specified that it would increase the volume of traffic in and out of Sliema by a staggering 3,500 cars a day. What the report failed to mention is that the streets leading in and out of Sliema are not going to get any wider. The Strand/Sliema Seafront is the widest, and it caters for one lane of traffic each way. (I shudder to think what Manuel Dimech Street will become like. Manuel Demented, more like it...)

In Mriehel, a project for four high-rise towers was approved, even though it failed to provide sufficient parking spaces for all the cars it would attract. So we can expect a few hundred more cars circulating endlessly to find a parking space in a crowded area... every single working day of the week.

Oh, and of course we also decided that there simply wasn’t enough chaos and confusion in Paceville these days. So we came up with a ‘master plan’ for the area, which masterfully repeats all the above mistakes... only this time in a smaller area catered for by even narrower streets.

Yep, folks. That is what we refer to as ‘planning’ in this country. We even have a State Planning Authority, to ensure that everything is meticulously planned to maximise traffic as much as possible, in every single part of the island.

And you’re complaining about traffic today? Sorry, but... ha, ha! Just you wait, ‘Enry ‘Iggins, just you wait...