Responses from the Malta Transport Authority to readers' letters should carry a serious health warning. All those who know a little bit about cycling and who read the ADT's Daniela Borg Mizzi's letter (Design Of Bicycle Tracks And Lanes, June 25) while having their breakfast must have choked on their cornflakes.
Cycle lanes, according to the standard definition, are "a reserved area for cyclists marked by a continuous white line on existing carriageways". Our so-called cyle lanes consist of no more than a white line painted along the litter-ridden edge of some of our main roads. The "cycle lanes" are narrow, they start nowhere and they end suddenly somewhere else in a totally haphazard fashion. Worse still, they are not continuous. Such cycle lanes do not offer any protection to the cyclist. To say that these cycle lanes are "based on specifications following participation with the Malta Cycling Federation and the EU's Cyronmed project" can be nothing more than serious leg-pulling.
Even though there is no doubt that the creation of these "cycle lanes" was well-intentioned, they are so poorly conceived that there can be little doubt that they were designed by a desk-bound civil servant who has never seen a bicycle. Such narrow, poorly designed cycle lanes simply help to further reinforce two local misconceptions: Firstly, that the cyclist is a second-class user of the road who can be consigned to the roadside gutter and, secondly, that cyclists do not have a legitimate right to use the road.
It is useless to add cycle lanes (or tracks) where nobody cycles in the first place. Cycle lanes should be added at least on main commuting roads but only where it is quite certain that a cycle lane is needed and that it will make life safer for the cyclist. A cycle lane must never be discontinuous because it places inexperienced cyclists in a dangerous position by obliging them to pull out unexpectedly into traffic, which is a skilled piece of manoeuvring. Except where cycle lanes are sufficiently wide and correctly situated, cyclists are better off using the road. Narrow and badly designed cycle lanes can actually endanger cyclists because vehicle drivers often straddle the demarcation line of cycle lanes and endanger cyclists by allowing them too little space. Not one of the existing cycle lanes (or tracks) extend to junctions or roundabouts. This alone renders the cycle lanes useless as they deprive cyclists of the ability to safely move into a correct road position at junctions which is not in car or lorry drivers' blind spot; this places cyclists in danger when vehicles turn left.
At the very best our "cycle lanes" might look like a good idea to the inexperienced but, sadly, they are mostly dangerous and merely cosmetic. Other well-meant devices aimed at attracting cyclists to the road are those pretty "cycle racks". These are of no use; cyclists are so few that they have no parking problems and these "racks" are placed so far away from amenities that cyclists are unlikely to use them for fear of getting their bicycle stolen. These are also purely cosmetic.
The Malta Transport Authority is quoted as saying that it is "committed to...encourage a modal shift to usage from private car to other sustainable means of transport". This is grandiose eyewash.
The important point is this: In the absence of more sensible measures (of which there are a great many) to encourage bicycle use, merely displacing cyclists from existing roads on to woefully inadequate, haphazardly placed "cycle lanes" will have no effect in encouraging cycling. Such cycle lanes as we have so far are a deterrent to would-be cyclists. They are positively dangerous and nearly all in the wrong place.