Bonett’s plan to ease traffic congestion: A déjà vu

Chris Bonett’s plan to ease traffic congestion is pragmatic but also an indictment of government’s inertia to tackle the issue over the past decade. 

Most of the 18 points listed in Bonett’s plan, dubbed Reshaping Our Mobility, had appeared in a transport master plan published eight years ago. The latter was called Transport Master Plan 2025 and was put forward by then-minister Joe Mizzi. 

With just one year to go before the master plan expires, some of the measures have resurfaced in the Bonett plan with a commitment to implement the changes over an 18-month period after all public consultation processes come to an end. 

The transport master plan was a 444-page document, covering all areas of transport – land, maritime and aviation. It identified the challenges and proposed several solutions. 

The part on land transport was focused on easing traffic congestion and encouraging the use of alternative modes of transport, including sea travel. 

The master plan had painted a grim picture at the time, arguing that the economic cost of traffic congestion through increased journey time delays, higher operating costs and the cost of extra pollution would reach €584 million per year by 2025. 

The master plan had forecast that at 2016 growth levels, by the year 2025, Tower Road and the Strand in Sliema will reach their practical operating capacities. It also forecast that the central section of the TEN-T network (Triq Aldo Moro, Hamrun Bypass, Santa Venera tunnels and Tal-Qroqq junction), will experience a further 6% traffic growth and suffer major capacity issues during the morning peak. 

The master plan authors warned that without appropriate mitigation measures, the bottleneck along this section of the TEN-T will challenge sustainable mobility in the greater part of the island. 

Since 2016, the government did invest in several major road projects to ease traffic flow and render main junctions and thoroughfares safer. It continues to do so now with the proposed Msida flyover. It also introduced free public transport for everyone, including free harbour ferries. However, other measures remained unfulfilled and traffic continues to be a major problem surfacing in every survey as one of the topmost concerns. 

And yet, despite the concerns, the number of cars on Malta’s roads has continued to increase. By September 2024 the stock of licensed vehicles stood at 443,193, representing an average increase of 33 vehicles per day, according to the National Statistics Office. 

Traffic will continue to cause any transport minister sleepless nights because only a cultural shift away from Malta’s adulation for the private car can help reduce road congestion significantly. This is unlikely to happen any time soon, which means tackling the problem is like treading into a minefield for any politician. 

The difficulty to change behaviour patterns could also explain why proposals from 2016 remained unimplemented and have now reappeared in the Bonett plan. 

When contacted for this report, Bonett would not comment on the failure of previous transport ministers to implement some of the proposals listed in his plan. Nonetheless, he insisted the Malta of today was a far different country from the one when the transport master plan was drafted. 

The minster reiterated his commitment to implement the proposed changes over an 18-month period. 

“The public consultation will end in December after which we will analyse the feedback and publish a final set of measures, which I will then discuss with the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development,” Bonett said. He added: “Once the measures are fine-tuned, I am committed to implementing them within 18 months.” 

Traffic is a major concern for people and yet Malta remains in love with the private car

Proposed in 2016, rediscovered in 2024 

MaltaToday leafed through the proposals put forward by Chris Bonett to ease traffic congestion and found that several of them had already been proposed in the Transport Master Plan 2025, published in 2016. The proposal concerning the voluntary surrender of the driving licence was presented in more detail in the environment ministry’s Air Quality Transport Plan published for consultation in 2023, which remains a works in progress. 

Off-peak service provision 

The Bonett plan: ‘Government will engage with the private sector to discuss the planning and implementation of deliveries during off-peak hours particularly in the retail, manufacturing, hospitality and construction sectors.’ 

Transport Master Plan 2025 (TMP 2025): ‘…the better time management organisation of freight deliveries within busy centres can effectively reduce their impact during peak travel times… Options to improve the last mile delivery of goods, could be explored through pilot projects, considering night-time delivery using low-noise vehicles and a coordination system for optimal scheduling.’ 

Freight to Gozo 

The Bonett plan: ‘Study the feasibility and implementation of additional cargo services to Gozo possibly through the Malta Freeport, Kordin and Valletta.’ 

TMP 2025: ‘Since the Sa Maison Port will be converted into a yacht marina, government is currently looking for alternative facilities to improve internal sea freight transport in between the two islands, by re-locating domestic freight movements to the Port of Valletta.’ 

Giving up driving licence 

The Bonett plan: ‘Surrendering car driving licence and convincing youths not to obtain a car driving licence.’ 

Air Quality Plan 2023: ‘Motorists voluntarily surrender their driving licence for a period and in return they will gain credit on a proposed mobility wallet… rewards include taxi services (preferably electric ones), grants to purchase electric bicycles, and vouchers which can be redeemed at supermarkets and other service providers. The proposal should be implemented in the medium term.’ 

Cycling strategy 

The Bonett plan: ‘Development of a National Cycling Strategy.’ 

TMP 2025: ‘Develop a cycling strategy focussing on the ‘‘hub’’… develop pilot cycle corridors between Valletta and: i) St. Julian’s, Sliema; ii) Three Cities and Fgura, and iii) between villages.’ 

Park and ride facilities 

The Bonett plan: ‘Create a number of park and ride facilities particularly in retail/commercial centres.’ 

TMP 2025: ‘Optimise use of existing park and ride facilities and develop new sites at strategic locations to encourage modal interchange.’ 

Roadworks coordination 

The Bonett plan: ‘Improved coordination between relevant entities with a view to limit the inconvenience for citizens when projects are underway, whilst keeping local councils and residents in the area, abreast of project developments. Adoption of Standards and Procedures.’ 

TMP 2025: ‘Improve coordination and planning with service utility infrastructure authorities… One way to address this would be to establish a coordination unit that brings together all service providers and their long-term plans for infrastructure.’ 

A review of the bus routes will take place to cater for today's needs (Photo: Malta Public Transport)

Other ideas in the Bonett plan 

Some of these ideas are already being implemented, albeit sporadically or on a minor scale, while the whole package of changes to the bus routes is long overdue as the minister himself acknowledged. 

Parking: ‘Parking in public spaces such as in school grounds.’ 

This is already happening in Marsaskala and St Paul’s Bay, where school underground parking facilities are also used by the community outside school hours. This is possible because these are new schools and parking facilities were integrated in the plans when they were built. Similar parking facilities will be available in Msida, where another new school was built. 

Going digital: ‘Exploring digital solutions as a means to improve parking.’ 

Rudimentary technology to flag the number of vacant parking spaces available and where, had been introduced in Qormi and Valletta some years back by the respective local councils although these have proved unreliable. 

Government services: ‘Government will lead by example whereby a number of public services will be provided off-peak. These may include: waste collection, road cleansing, road markings, driving licensing tests/lessons and landscaping, amongst others.’ 

This is already happening in the waste collection sphere in at least three localities – Sliema, Dingli and Gharghur – where door-to-door waste collection is done in the evening. 

Improving public transport: ‘New direct bus routes for industrial estates’; ‘circular buses for large localities’; ‘new direct buses from park and ride such as Ta’ Qali to nodes including Mater Dei Hospital, University and ferry terminals’; ‘national route revision’. 

The last mass revision of bus routes was carried out in 2015 when Spanish bus operator Autobuses de Leon was awarded the concession to operate a scheduled bus service in Malta and Gozo after a competitive tender. 

Use car outside peak hours: ‘Incentivising full-time employees to use their private vehicle during off peak hours.’ 

Promote car-pooling: ‘Revising the Employee Transportation Deduction Act to encourage business in promoting car-pooling by reducing by half (to 4 from 8) the threshold of persons required to benefit from this tax deduction instrument.’ 

Ambassador: ‘Appointment of an Ambassador for Sustainable Mobility to assist in the development of policy initiatives as well as the implementation of measures within the strategy who will be supported by an Advisory Committee for Sustainable Mobility’.