Ways of reducing traffic in Malta

14 comments

1. As usual the most obvious and required option is forgotten: reduce migration to reduce the population. Less people = less cars.

   Let’s make Malta small again. We don’t need big roads, tall buildings or big GDPs.

   Making it harder to use cars is only going to make it stressful for Maltese families who are unable to use bicycles, scooters or public transport to move around with their kids. I find that these so-called *green ideas* often seem to assume that everyone is single and works at an office; and whilst there may be a lot of childless couples walking their dogs in certain villages, believe me, the rest of the country has families.

2. The proposed solutions don’t seem to apply so well to Malta.

   Firstly, induced demand. Malta is an island. There are a finite number of cars. If you widen a road and now more people flock to it, the cars didn’t appear out of nowhere – it means the people now using that road have freed up other roads (probably narrow winding roads in village cores, where the pollution the cars generate is closer to the people).

   Secondly, dedicated bus lanes won’t solve anything because the roads aren’t wide enough for a dedicated lane over the whole route. So the bus just gets stuck in traffic at the next single-lane road where it merges with everyone else. And the traffic is now worse because you’re losing all the throughput of whole lane for a dedicated bus lane (remember how much traffic there used to be in Marsa and Sliema Ferries when the bus lane was still there?)

   The only thing I see working here is a cheap ride-pooling solution maybe using self-driving vehicles, where you call a ride with an app, and an algorithm plots efficient routing to take you very close to your destination almost as fast as a car does. The bus is too slow and inconvenient. My commute is only 10 minutes but would be 30 minutes by bus or 45 minutes by walk – a time loss of 3.5+ hours per week (and that’s ignoring time wasted on bus stops).

   And in the interim, more enforcement to drastically improve driving standards. So much traffic is caused by selfish people parking badly and blocking roads. And the country collectively loses immense amounts of time stuck behind people driving slowly in the overtaking lane. If you want to cruise at 40km/h on the bypass, that’s fine, but get in the left lane like the Highway Code tells you to. Wardens should be fining people for that, not for petty things like keeping lights off in the tunnels, which are now illuminated brighter than daylight.

3. country wide scale g3nocide of bolt drivers should fix it

4. Tax cars,

   charge for parking,

   create a real cycling infrastructure (not usuable lanes on 70-80kmh roads),

   promote cargo e-bikes (because they can entirely replace a car),

   provide community bike parking,

   cut EV car grants in half and use that for cycle grants and infrastructure

5. Malta has two problems. Too many cars, and too many cars parked at any one time.

   I can practically guarantee that in the vast majority of streets in Malta, for every 10 parking places, 9 are occupied. That’s 9 cars that aren’t being used. To this end, I’d suggest something like drive-now; it’s a bit like goto, except not crap. Such a service should have sufficient vehicles, that I don’t feel the need to have a dedicated car myself, and should be priced, such that at whatever level I use it, it’s going to be cheaper than owning my own car.

   Public transport wise, it’s blatantly obvious that Malta needs more infrastructure, such as a metro, or tram or something, but in the shorter term, Malta should optimise the use of the infrastructure it already has.

   One example here, particularly between St Julians and the 3 cities, and everywhere in between, would be the use of waterways for public transport. This could be subsidised by the cost of licences for private cars, or from tax on the fuel used for private cars.

   Busses need to improve. Dramatically. Getting from one place to another in Malta has to become a lot more efficient. These TD busses should be seen as a step in the right direction for every bus, rather than being twice the fare. In Germany, there’s a law requiring vehicles in a traffic jam to position themselves to make it easier for emergency vehicles to pass. Malta could adopt a similar rule for public transport.

   Now having that said, as I said earlier Malta definitely does need more infrastructure, but that can’t go in overnight. The low hanging fruit should be picked first, to get us by until such point that forward looking proper efficient public transport infrastructure can be put in place.

   I lived for 3 years in Vienna before moving to Malta, using only public transport. I didn’t have car momentum behind me. Give me public transport that works, and I’m accustomed to using it. Even I however have a car here in Malta.

6. Remote working!!

7. The only realistic solution is stricter traffic laws.

   Too many accidents, too many people double park, ignore stop signs etc.

   Stricter fines, Stricter Tests, raise the driving age to 25, Re-test every 5 years, suspend licences on repeat offenders, etc.

   So many people have no idea how to drive safely.

   – Speed limits are ignored unless there are cameras
   -Stop signs are ignored if theres no obvious traffic
   -When doing sharp turns, people tend to turn too tightly, pushing themselves into the wrong lane for a few seconds(which is dangerous)
   -Indicators are either not used at all or used too early / late, no one uses them properly.
   -Double parking is rampent

   I could go on and on.

8. Limiting migration/population growth, enforcement on double parking/shit driving habits, better/safer bicycle routes & storage, more water transport connections (south to central, north, etc), BY LAW has to be one parking space per new apartment built (under the building parking/garages), less speed bumps, scrapping of old unused cars parked in the streets, better signage for road works, better system for rubbish collection (how many times have you been stuck behind rubbish trucks?), more public car parks, I’m sure there’s more.

   A lot of these issues come from massive overpopulation, poor town planning, too many cars, but not enough garages & parking, which gives you no option but to park illegally, probably blocking roads, creating more traffic. Also the constant construction of apartments in place of houses is just jamming up everywhere, from having maybe a couple possible cars from one address, we are ending up with plenty more in the same street from a block of flats.

9. Genuinely just close the roads. If driving is a pain people will bike.

10. Get some ferries around the island. When I lived in the north, I would have loved to take a ferry to Sliema for work. You are surrounded by water. Use it

11. there was an initiative to make busses free

12. Something like an above the road train/monorail could possibly work? Might ruin the scenery a bit but then again.. Cranes.

13. solution is easy but it will loose votes…. make street parking against a fee, and use that income to subsidise car pooling companies such as Cool.

14. Improve buses reliability – with up to date times ( use technology) and prioritize them on the road

    Improve cycling infrastructure – build PROPER cycling lanes. Have at least one safe connection between all villages in Malta. Enforce urban speed limits – really enforce