Bus shelters upkeep

I refer to the letter entitled Bus Shelter With A View by Michael Agius (June 24).

Mr Agius seems to imply that I am not sensitive to the users of public transport in my village because a bus shelter has been left in a pitiful state and a palm tree is blocking the view on oncoming traffic.

Mr Agius also assumes that the upkeep or replacement of bus shelters is my direct responsibility. Whoever gave Mr Agius this information grossly misled him. Had he queried me personally I would have given him the correct information immediately.

The erection, replacement and maintenance of bus shelters are functions which were delegated to the 69 local councils by means of Article 3 of Legal Notice 292 of 2001. This passing on of these responsibilities does not just apply to bus shelters installed on local roads similar to the one appearing in the picture with his letter but also to arterial and distributor roads.

What is under my ministry's direct responsibility is ensuring that the proper notices and timetables are affixed on bus stops. The said legal notice vests the responsibility of establishing the specifications of bus shelters on the Malta Transport Authority (ADT).

In the past weeks the Ministry for Urban Development and Roads has been working with the Local Councils' Association in order to establish a procedure whereby allocated spaces in these bus shelters could be accessed in order to install properly designed timetables. We hope to finalise this agreement in the coming days.

The same legal notice, however, also allows the ADT to intervene in cases where the local council in question does not take the initiative to change bus stops in need of replacement itself. I have thus instructed our personnel at the authority to submit an application to Mepa for the replacement of this bus shelter in Zejtun Road.