The feedback The Times got from its online poll regarding the government's proposals to improve accessibility to Valletta and Floriana (Valletta Traffic Management Plans Welcomed But...) was to be expected.
Clearly just about everyone appreciates the facts that congestion in the capital and on the roads leading to it has exceeded any acceptable level and that, as the saying goes, "they" should do something about it. Equally clearly, asking commuters who work everyday in Valletta to consider alternative ways of going to work rather than the luxury of their own cars cannot be expected to be a popular request with the commuters themselves.
The root of the problems that our capital and the roads leading to it face every working day lie in our gross reliance on private cars. Maltese roads are the most crowded in the world: this is no rhetorical exaggeration, it is a statistical fact. It is also a statistical fact that wheezing in children has trebled in this country in the last 10 years alone and that cleaning the façades of our historical buildings in the city has become as pointless as it is expensive.
Our research confirms common knowledge: By 8.30 a.m. no legal parking space is left available for anyone wanting to visit the city to shop. Shoppers or visitors avoid the city altogether and only come here if they must, paying over Lm1 to leave their car in a car park for two hours or an indefinite amount to a parker or risk a fine. Our data shows that by 11 a.m. there is one car parked illegally for every two that are properly parked. This is a mere indicator of all the shopping business the city loses because of people who simply give the ordeal of parking in Valletta a miss.
We need to get those shoppers back to the city. Valletta deserves this much. Which is why we are proposing to reduce the cost of parking in Valletta for a couple of hours during shopping time to 60c and providing a comfortable parking space close to the shopping centre where previously an office employee would have left his or her car all day. We are also proposing that using the car to have dinner in Valletta, or watch a film, or go to the theatre will no longer cost Lm20 a year paid up front, but 10c a night.
The government does not expect commuters to pay Lm2.40 a day to continue their present lifestyle, which is why this cannot be called a tax. The Lm2.40-a-day fee for eight hours or more of parking is an explicit disincentive. There are simply more cars competing for parking spaces in the city than Valletta can possibly take: there are 10 'V' licence holders for every single parking space in the city. The present first-come-first-served scenario is killing business, tourism, and making the city uninhabitable as residents have no way of reaching their own homes during office hours.
The only way this situation can be taken around is if commuters are asked to change their habits. And the fact of the matter is that commuters are best placed to do so. For most shopping and residential needs the private car is indispensable. Commuting is patterned, predictable and in the case of Valletta served by direct bus routes from all over the island.
Now there is much that can be improved in our bus service and much that is being done to meet justified customers' expectations. It should be said however that buses will always have to stop in bus stops and will always have some level of frequency which will mean that boarding the bus will not be as instantaneous as using one's own car.
Expecting the bus to be as fast or as comfortable as one's own car is unrealistic. This is a reality that is taken as a given right by all commuters in any modern city in the world, none of whom expect to be allowed to drive all the way to the city centre and to leave their car parked in the heart of the shopping and administrative centre free of charge.
Buses are only one of the alternatives that are available. Mini-buses are a credible option for factory employees and there can be no conceivable reasons why office employees cannot organise for themselves group mini-bus transport. Any urgent need of a lift should be covered by the use of a taxi that will always be more expensive in terms of a single ride than any other option but emergencies are by definition infrequent.
The park-and-ride facility in Blata l-Bajda is yet another option that will probably be the choice of people who need their car before or after work to drive their children to school say, or to go to the gym after a day at the office.
There is also the option to share cars. Seven of every eight cars that drive each morning through St Anne Street carry only their drivers. There's too much waste of space in those cars, many of which certainly come from neighbouring points of origin and all of which are headed to a common point of destination. Many commuters will strike minor deals with their colleagues to take turns driving each other to work and sharing the parking fee: freeing up much of the congestion and fumes on our roads.
The government's White Paper is also proposing ways of improving on what is available. We think that introducing a charge for parking on streets in Valletta will create the critical mass to make water transport from inside and outside the harbours a viable option for a substantial number of commuters.
The Maritime Authority will be shortly issuing licences to operators in this area. This is coupled with a parallel initiative to improve accessibility between the harbour sides and the city centre using escalators or elevators and small electric taxis serving within the city borders.
The government is aware that from the point of view of the commuter inside his or her comfortable car any option mentioned here is for different reasons less attractive than the private car. Commuters will put up with traffic jams, with huge insurance bills, with substantial fuel costs, even with parking tickets as long as they are in their own car, which is why it takes more than advertising to persuade them to look at alternative means of group transport.
But most commuters, as indeed most respondents to your online poll, do realise that the black soot on the façades of our palaces is but an image of the black soot on the walls of their and their children's lungs. Even "they" should do something about it.
Mr Delia is on the Cabinet Committee for National Projects.