Monorail: A one-track solution for traffic?

Would the introduction of a monorail system finally address Malta’s traffic situation? Would it usher in a repeat of the chaos that ensued with the public transport reform of 2012? Or is it just a pie-in-the-sky idea that will never materialise at all?

Alongside oil exploration, promises of great infrastructural projects – bridges to or airstrips on Gozo, for instance – are among the ideas many people have come to expect from governments eager to distract the general public from other issues.

This week’s announcement of a possible monorail system – an elevated, single track railway line connecting various parts of the island – was no exception. Following hard on the heels of a controversy which ended with a minister’s dismissal last Tuesday, the sudden unexpected announcement of a €1.42 billion public transport project was initially met with scepticism… as if it were just another smokescreen to add to all the rest.

Still, the task force that proposed the idea, headed by financial services expert Alfred Mifsud, was nothing if not upbeat about both its feasibility and the benefits such a project would entail.

“Being an island state on the periphery of Europe, Malta does not share hard borders with other EU states and is disadvantaged both by its insularity and by the inability to co-ordinate with other member states for cross-border projects,” the task force said.

A monorail, it concluded, was the ‘ultimate solution for urban mobility’: “This will bring a cataclysmic change to the daily commute, making public transport the preferred means of urban transport, generating efficiency and economic growth as people will spend less time wasted in traffic congestions.”

Pie in the sky?

All the same, this is territory we have been over before countless times in the past: in some cases literally, as a monorail system had featured in another proposal submitted by entrepreneur Angelo Xuereb over 23 years ago, but which was at the time rejected.

And while the same general idea has now been resuscitated by Transport Malta – thus giving it a degree of official credence – we are also (yet again) concurrently discussing the possibility of a bridge connecting Malta to Gozo: this time to be built by Chinese infrastructural companies, for the hefty sum of €1 billion.

As with the boy who cried wolf, people may be forgiven for taking such grand suggestions with more than a pinch of salt.

Nonetheless, there are a number of aspects to this latest proposal that make it a likelier prospect to materialise than its many unrealised predecessors. The first and most crucial is the possibility of EU funding, which would address the most conspicuous stumbling blocks faced by all such ideas: money.

Such projects are eligible for partial EU funding via the European Investment Bank, so long as 50% of the costs are borne by the government. The project proposal submitted to the Transport Authority envisages a public private partnership, whereby the government would co-finance the investment by conducting all technical, environmental and regulatory studies. The private sector would be expected to fork out the shortfall.

Another consideration is the fact that – unlike Malta’s bus service, and certainly unlike toll-bridges or tunnels – monorails are cost-effective and have been known to run at a profit: making the idea at once more attractive to investors.

The way forward

Monorails are in fact increasing in popularity as a (mostly inner-city) means of transportation: in the past decade alone, such systems were put into place in Dusseldorf, Germany; Moscow, Russia; Zaragoza, Spain; and, most recently, the Marconi Express in Bologna, Italy: a five-kilometre monorail line, currently under construction, connecting the airport to the central railway station.

The flipside of these advantages is that Malta’s rail network, envisaged to run for 79km, is substantially larger than any of the above systems, and therefore considerably more expensive to build. Monorails are not normally expected to provide connectivity services for entire countries; and while Malta is small enough to adopt inner-city modes of transportation, the project remains a good deal more ambitious than any of its European counterparts… nearly all of which provide only limited, unidirectional connections to and from airports.

One of the factors contributing to the high cost involved is the fact that Malta’s system will not be unidirectional: the project brief describes “over-ground and underground lines running North-South and West-East intersecting at key traffic junctions and feeding at its various stops into other above-ground public transport means”.

This would require ‘switches’ between different rails: a factor known to radically inflate the otherwise modest costs of building such networks when compared to others (such as underground railways, which involve expensive tunnelling).

However there is a factor which overrides most, if not all, these issues: the traffic situation in Malta, which has nearly reached saturation point. Apart from causing daily inconvenience to motorists, traffic also comes at a cost to the economy: time wasted stuck in traffic jams also translates into unproductive time which has consequences for the Gross Domestic Product. The long-term cost of failing to address this problem may therefore outweigh the initial investment.

Recent surveys have also shown that traffic has overtaken immigration as a number one cause for concern. And coming so soon after the 2012 bus service reform, which the Labour party (then in Opposition) had criticised so loudly, there were political ramifications, too. The present government is under political pressure to deliver a practical solution to this problem, where its predecessor had failed.

Deja-vu

Angelo Xuereb, the man who first envisaged an elevated railway for Malta in the 1990s, seems confident that the urgent need for a solution to traffic problems will propel this umpteenth public transport project to completion.

“First of all I am delighted that the government has now understood that this is the way forward,” he told MaltaToday. “I saw this coming years ago. The country can’t afford this constant escalation of cars on the road. It was inevitable that we would have to embark on something like this sooner or later.”

If Xuereb had his way it would have been far sooner. But he acknowledges that his original ideas would not necessarily work in today’s Malta.

“My original plans in the 1990s were based on the traffic situation back then, and had later to be revised. Now they would have to be revised again. A lot has changed since then.”

One such change is that Mater Dei Hospital – which has only been functioning since 2004 – must now feature as a prominent strategic point in the entire network.

In fact, the project now under consideration differs significantly from Xuereb’s earlier plans, where the monorail was to be run on a circular line, fed by (among others) a ferry service linking the harbours. Xuereb concedes that the idea of a north-south, east-west axis might work in today’s scenario, but expresses doubts over questions that the new proposals don’t seem to answer.

“Whatever the details of the new system, it can only work if it is integrated into a network comprising other modes of transportation. The style of motoring in Malta is not the same as in other countries, and if you’re going to persuade a Maltese person not to use a car, you’re going to have to provide him with a service in which he or she will never have to wait more than five minutes at a stop. Otherwise, they’ll just go back to using their cars, and the project would be counter-productive.”

Xuereb implies that this can only be achieved if the new system is launched concurrently with a radical revision of the existing bus service. Apart from bus routes which would have to be redesigned to operate in tandem with the monorail, Xuereb also expects the buses themselves to change. He argues in favour of smaller but more regular buses, connecting town centres to points on the monorail axis. This in turn would have to be integrated with a service running independently of the railway line to maximise options and shorten distances wherever possible.

“If this were to be achieved I have no doubt that car usage in Malta would dramatically reduce; and with it we will also reduce pollution, and increase productivity and efficiency across the board.”

Safer and cleaner

Environmental concerns are in fact another of the project’s selling points. By and large, a monorail is a greener alternative than most other options (and certainly to the only service currently existing on the island).

Ralph Cassar, secretary of Alternattiva Demokratika/The Green Party, and also co-author of a report on sustainable urban mobility, welcomes the monorail proposal as “one of this government’s most forward-looking projects.”

“AD supports investment in high tech public transportation systems and the creation of green jobs. Of course one would have to see the details to comment on the specifics. For example I would expect any tunnelling that might be needed in certain areas to be dug under existing roads, or built-up areas to reduce or eliminate effects on the water table, for example.”

But if the investment means reducing traffic, especially in heavily congested areas, Cassar argues that it would be well worth the cost and inconvenience of a major infrastructural project.

“Our real ‘cancer factories’, which the others ignore, are areas such as Msida, Gzira, Sliema, Mosta, Paola, Hamrun, Floriana and Fgura. Road traffic is a major source of pollution with all the health problems this creates.”

In other parts of the world, similar projects have translated into major environmental and public health gains for communities. In 2007, the Las Vegas Monorail aided in the annual removal of an estimated 3.2 million vehicles from the road and reduced emissions by more than 58 tons of carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides in one year.

Concerns with noise pollution have also been superseded by modern technology: most monorails now run on rubber tires, and are very quiet.

But while Cassar generally welcomes the idea, he also points out that this project appears to contradict government policy in other related areas. While the whole point of a monorail is to reduce the number of cars on the road, the government is simultaneously also embarking on major road-building exercises across the country.

“New or wider roads don’t cut congestion. They simply lead to more traffic jams, exacerbate emissions and erode what’s left of our degraded countryside. Maybe it’s hard for some people to accept these simple facts – but there’s no escaping them.”

To reduce traffic, he adds, the monorail project must be accompanied by other policy decisions. “The government must stop dreaming up new roads or widening of existing roads: if the monorail project goes ahead, all money spent on new road building, flyovers and what not is money down the drain. More roads mean more pollution – it’s that simple.”

If anything, Cassar recommends the opposite strategy: “The project’s positive impact will be maximised if more roadspace along the route of the monorail, and areas within walking distance from stations, are pedestrianised, or declared low emission zones. Also there should be facilities at monorail stations for clean forms of personal transport such as pedelecs and bicycles. Providing space on the monorail train for bicycles would be a huge plus, making the system more accessible.”

Questions sent to Transport Malta remained unanswered at the time of going to print.