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In a few months’ time, going out with a car, rather than owning it, will be in itself a status symbol, but the alternatives remain a bunch of promises by the government to improve public transport. Karl Schembri writes about the impending parking inferno
As tempers flare in the traffic-congested roads under the scorching summer sun, Maltese drivers will soon have to calculate more than the fuel costs and the looming traffic wardens’ fines as they drive to work or go on an errand.
Parking is not a new problem and with the increasing number of cars on the road it is bound to get worse. Also steadily on the rise is the government’s remote-controlled surveillance cameras ready to click at any moving car, be it for overspeeding, parking in the wrong spaces, or soon, just for just driving legally through the capital.
By April next year, Valletta and Floriana will be armed with new cameras taking pictures of all cars entering and coming out of the capital and its suburb, so that every driver staying more than 30 minutes receives a bill at home.
The plan, unveiled last Tuesday, was presented as the solution to traffic congestion and parking problems on the peninsula while reducing drastically car pollution, but it offers no glimpse of how public transport is expected to improve as an alternative means of getting to the capital.
In fact, the people who came up with the plan never use public transport, except for the yearly Car Free Day spectacle in front of television cameras. They are: Transport Minister Jesmond Mugliett, Environment Minister George Pullicino, Investments Minister Austin Gatt, Infrastructure Minister Ninu Zammit and Parliamentary Secretary Tonio Fenech. And despite their revolutionary plans to reduce traffic, they will be going to Valletta with their stately cars and pay for their parking through taxpayers’ money. In Gatt’s own words: “Yes we’ll go with our cars and pay for the parking”.
Yet they found it perfectly right to pontificate about the need for Maltese workers to use public transport in their White Paper without setting the example.
“We expect them, like every other employee in Europe working in congested zones like Valletta and Floriana, to go to work using public transport and if they insist on going to work with their car, then it is their choice and they have to pay for it,” their revolutionary document says.
“We also expect them to pick up three other workers on the way if they go to work with their car, and in that way they can share the fare”. It is also unclear how many workers the Cabinet ministers intend to pick up on their way to work.
The document mocks workers going to work with their private cars even further: “Here is the irony: 75 per cent of those who work come with their private cars while 70 per cent of visitors come on buses. In which other country do you go for work in the centre of the capital city with your car and park there for eight hours? Only in Malta… Valletta and Floriana should not be warehouses for employees’ cars until they leave their offices. Valletta and Floriana should be enjoyed by the residents, their relatives, by those who go to shop or eat or to those who need services as well as for historical and tourist value”.
So will there be any improvement to public transport? No plans there, but Mugliett boosts public hope by saying that “this project in itself should improve public transport” without stating how. He said he will be encouraging new ferry services to Valletta.
Valletta and Floriana residents may be relieved by the new parking regime – the city’s mayor, Paul Borg Olivier, said his council wanted harsher measures to curb traffic – but the worst hit are going to be precisely the workers commuting to their offices by car. If they opt to use the so-called “Park and Ride” facility in Blata l-Bajda they will have to pay 60c a day, Lm3 a week, as long as they park before 8am. The rates for those arriving later still have to be worked out.
The current V licence for a yearly Lm20 fee will be scrapped so that drivers entering Valletta will pay an hourly 30c fee, capped at Lm2.40 a day, while those entering Floriana will pay 20c an hour, capped at a maximum of Lm1.80 a day. Residents’ cars, commercial vehicles, emergency cars, taxis, motorbikes and bicycles will be exempted.
The Valletta and Floriana project comes after several other “pilot projects” around the island experimenting with timed parking and CCTV control.
But more than solving the national parking problem, these measures are just making it more expensive to drive your own car, beyond the fuel hikes, without giving public transport alternatives to suit everyday commuters. Soon, it will be driving a car, not merely owning it, a clear sign of social standing in our society.
karl@newsworksltd.com
The plan on paper:
Install cameras for time parking in Floriana and Valletta
Eliminate V licence
Larger pedestrian zone in Valletta
Relocate il-monti from Merchants’ Street
Operate park and ride scheme from Blata l-Bajda, with 950 parking spaces
Remove parking from St George’s Square, Freedom Square and the Opera House rubble site
Valletta parking fees:
Monday to Friday 8am – 6pm, and Saturday 8am – 1pm:
First 30 minutes – free
Second 30 minutes – 30c
After 1hr – 30c per hour
Maximum: Lm2.40
Other times: Free first 30 minutes
10c one-time charge after 30 minutes
Floriana parking fees:
Monday to Friday 8am – 6pm, and Saturday 8am – 1pm:
First 30 minutes – free
Second 30 minutes – 20c
After 1hr – 20c per hour
Maximum: Lm1.80
Other times: Free first 30 minutes
5c one-time charge after 30 minutes
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