More commuters park and ride

In its second day since its soft launch on Monday, the Park and Ride site outside Floriana yesterday saw double the number of cars that were parked on Monday, an outcome Roads Minister Jesmond Mugliett hailed as a success.

The scheme gives motorists the option of parking outside Floriana and being ferried to Valletta by a shuttle service. Both the parking and the shuttle are free of charge.

Initially, commuters were slow to warm to the scheme. By 3 p.m. on Monday only some 350 cars had used the parking area, a figure which went up to 500 by the end of the day.

Yesterday, the Minister was told by transport authority officials as he toured the site that by 1.30 p.m. some 650 cars had parked and that about 600 drivers had used the shuttle service. In contrast, only 280 had made use of the service on Monday.

In spite of the encouraging patronage, the minister has remained firmly opposed to the idea of making people pay for the service, despite having joked earlier with the authority's officials that he regretted having made the service free when he saw all those cars parked there.

The running of the scheme was estimated to cost some Lm100,000 annually, he said. Should more people use the scheme to access Floriana rather than Valletta, a commercial parking option could be considered.

Space for now, however, seems to be ample, especially as the second phase of the project is ready and more spaces are available.

The minister said he was very satisfied with the outcome, pointing out that some fine-tuning was made yesterday to the traffic lights system in St Anne street for better traffic flow.

The lights, which give the right of way to the shuttle bus, led to congestion on Monday. On the whole, Mr Mugliett said, the scheme had done better than expected but there was some further tweaking to be done.

Once the controlled traffic access scheme for Valletta comes into force in a few months' time - which will levy a charge according to the length of time a vehicle is parked in the city - more motorists are expected to make use of the Park and Ride scheme.

The launching of the scheme, however, will benefit Valletta immediately, according to the minister.

In the coming days, the ADT plans to prohibit parking in certain areas in Valletta.

The shuttle leaves the park regularly - every four minutes during peak time and every 10 off-peak - and drops off commuters in front of the US embassy in Floriana and near the Opera House ruins in Valletta.