Wider roads: Panacea for congestion or sacrificing land to the car god?

Traffic concerns in Malta have become ubiquitous dinner conversation-killers, akin to the rhetorical observations about the summer heat. Today the island is struggling under a heaving influx of foreign labour and increasing tourism. Down on the hot tarmac, motorists are the first to take in the inconvenience of increased vehicular presence and construction ‘blockages’. And yet, car importation continues unabated in Malta. As a spokesperson for transport minister, Ian Borg, told MaltaToday, “There is no one fit-all-solution to address the issues spawned by traffic congestion and the prevalent car culture.”

A long-term solution for Malta’s traffic problem has been in the offing for the past years. A monorail involving over-ground and underground lines was among potential projects submitted by Malta for funding from the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) in 2014.

Four years later Transport Malta is still “nearing the completion of a major detailed study” carried out over the last 18 months on a possible Mass Rapid Transit solution. Once completed, later on this year, the study will be presented to government, to consider the way forward.

But short of a quick-fix solution, the government has also embarked on a number of other initiatives aimed at reducing car use – like upgrading the current maritime landing ferry sites in Sliema, Cospicua and Valletta. These facilities will include passenger-waiting facilities and real-time information services to introduce further maritime ferry services.

Car-sharing solution

Another solution is to encourage car-sharing services provided by the private sector.

Towards the end of the year a private contractor is expected to assemble a fleet of 150 of the latest electric vehicles (EV) on the market while providing the necessary infrastructure, including a dedicated EV charging network and an app from which clients and members of the service can pre-book a vehicle to carry out a trip from an exclusive parking area to another. The project will cost €9 million in private investment.

Transport Malta is introducing safe cycling routes, across a number of villages with intelligent traffic system interventions, road-marking signs and traffic-calming measures to ensure safer routes for commuter cyclists. These routes are being designed and implemented on the so called ‘Share the road’ concept.

“The project which is spread over 26km of urban streets is by far the largest investment ever, strictly dedicated to the promotion of the softer transport modes of cycling and walking,” a TM spokesperson said, boasting of heavy investment in public transport, “the latter reaching record numbers of passenger trips”.

Malta is a nation addicted to its cars, requiring more and wider roads

Long-term solutions needed

Veteran environmentalist, Edward Mallia, is not impressed by these plans even if he recognises how public transport has indeed come a long way since it was first liberalised to Arriva; a subsidiary of Deustche-Bahn.

“I have been using it exclusively these last three years, but it is still snarled up in the ever-growing cloud of private cars, a substantial number of which carrying a single passenger-driver,” Mallia, a physicist, says.

He laments the lack of real incentives to use public transport for regular commuting. “As long as people are not encouraged to shift from private to public transport no lasting improvement can be expected… what is lacking is a viable plan to solve the linked problems of overcrowded roads, and addiction to private cars backed by a strong lobby.”

Mallia says the construction of new roads is another negative impact of our reliance on the private car. It is this reliance which is now “making by way of take-up of our scarcest resource: land area”.

The veteran scientist is also skeptical of piecemeal solutions. For example, electric car hire schemes will do little to decrease congestion “unless a proper occupancy is imposed” to ensure that these take a number of passengers – and not a single one.

Mallia also doubts whether a Rapid Transit System can work on existing road lines. “So it will involve either aerial – raised viaducts – or underground, both hugely expensive to build and run.”

And even if we decide to go for it tomorrow there will be a time-lag of four to five years before the project actually commences. “Where will we be at the finish, by way of road traffic situation?”

He compares the traffic situation to the environment minister’s waste reduction plans which include an incinerator as a final solution, with its build-time of some five years while we are rapidly running out of land fill space. “Josè Herrera is at least ‘talking’ of taking draconian measures to penalise those who do not separate their waste to prevent a system collapse. [Transport minister] Ian Borg has not even got that far… so far what we have seen are a series of piecemeal ‘solutions’ consisting in road-widening projects which do not address the root of the problem, while taking more land.”

Road-widening comes at the expense of agricultural land

Less farmland, less congestion?

In the meantime, the government is still planning new roads to cater for the increased traffic partly resulting from the increase in population and mega development projects like high-rise development in Mriehel.

Transport Malta is claiming that preliminary findings of unpublished reports confirm that if the new road from Saqqaja to Mriehel is not implemented, within a few years, travelling times through this route will increase by 250%, whilst air pollution will rise by 300%.

The project area will extend from the Mriehel Bypass junction next to the Malta Financial Services Authority offices, along Mdina Road, in Balzan and Attard, all the way to the roundabout at the foot of Saqqajja Hill. The new road design will widen the entire route to two- or three- lanes in each direction, whilst reconfiguring over 13 junctions, to eliminate several bottlenecks.

While Transport Malta reveals that the project will include 19,300sq.m. of new landscaped areas, with trees and other shrubbery, along the route at Attard and Balzan, the amount of agricultural land lost to the new road system still has to be quantified.

But the project comes at a cost, with the Environment Resources Authority already expressing concern over the loss of a large tract of agricultural land.

Mallia warns that increased southbound traffic through Triq Nutar Zarb might upset any hopes of improvement. He also says a large area of agricultural land would be gobbled by the new northbound arm of Nutar Zarb, which will go past the backs of houses all the way from Attard Cemetery to Mount Carmel Hospital. “Noise and exhaust and other pollution will certainly be present in these areas,” Mallia says.

Transport Malta has already considered a number of alternatives, including the widening of existing roads and the excavation of tunnels. “Whilst the widening of existing roads in the heart of Attard would have required extensive building expropriations and demolition, the excavation of tunnels was found to be unfeasible as well,” a government spokesperson told MaltaToday.      

Transport Malta is committed to publishing the findings of this cost-benefit analysis and the ongoing discussions with stakeholders which are being compiled in a final report. This will also be assessed in planning process.

But when asked whether a full Environment Impact Assessment has been started, the government spokesperson replied: “any other studies or documentation required by the planning and environmental authorities will be duly provided by Transport Malta, in line with applicable procedures.”

Trees are another victim of road-widening

Trees in the way

Transport Malta is also working on plans to upgrade the Santa Lucija roundabout junction, which includes a four-lane underpass to link Vjal Santa Lucija with Triq tal-Barrani and the building of a new roundabout, with safer connections, above it.

This project is expected to reduce travelling times and vehicle emissions along this main route to the southern part of Malta.

The ERA has recently expressed concern on the possible loss of trees along a kilometre-long expanse at the Addolorata hill in Paola, related to widening of the Santa Luċija roundabout.

“The destruction of hundreds of mature trees along Triq Marija Addolorata and Triq Tal-Barrani will impoverish Santa Lucija and Tarxien through the removal of the natural buffering these trees which, for decades, have provided these communities against the impact of heavy traffic,”, says NGO Flimkien Ghall-Ambjent Ahjar.

The government spokesperson insisted that whenever trees need to be relocated, every effort will be made to transplant them under the guidance of botanical experts. If transplanting is not technically possible, additional indigenous trees will be planted to ensure that the area is left with more trees than the amount found on site before the project.

Another pending road-widening project is that of Selmun Hill which would uproot 25 old Aleppo pine trees on Selmun Hill, which are protected under the Trees and Woodlands Protection Regulations. According to plans, the trees will be transplanted to a “green central strip” along the same road, but some experts have warned that such trees do not typically survive relocation.

Mriehel bypass: the new road design will widen the entire route to two- or three- lanes in each direction, whilst reconfiguring over 13 junctions, to eliminate several bottlenecks. The project will include 19,300sq.m. of new landscaped areas, with trees and other shrubbery, but the amount of agricultural land lost to the new road system still has to be quantified

More projects, more cars

Mega-development projects in the offing are expected to increase pressures in other areas in Malta. Traffic along Triq il-Missjoni Taljana in Kalkara could increase from the current daily average of 3,978 cars to a staggering 22,151 cars after the completion of all the development envisaged at Smart City (pictured)  – most of which was approved in 2009.

The original Traffic Impact Assessment for the project carried out in 2007 had been based on the assumption that a new link road to Smart City would pass through agricultural land in Zabbar. But this development is now considered “unlikely” according to an EIA commissioned by the Shoreline Developers, which are constructing a new luxury apartment complex on the site of Smart City.

A traffic study has indicated that the proposed development at Manoel Island by the MIDI consortium will generate an annual daily average number of 4,900 inbound and outbound trips. The original environment impact assessment for the project presented in 1999 had referred to the development of a new access road to Manoel Island from the Msida regional road. This proposal, which was meant to “offset the negative impact” on the infrastructure, was later dropped.

Together with other projects earmarked in St George’s Bay, and primarily the approved Villa Rosa project, the City Centre development is expected to increase the flow of traffic to the area by an average of 7,000 daily car trips. Transport Malta has not yet taken any decision with regard to the funding of a proposed tunnel that will funnel traffic from and to the db Group’s City Centre high-rise development in Pembroke.