The park-and-ride site in Blata l-Bajda can take 200 cars but, on most days, only a few cars can be seen there by the time everyone should be settled at their desks.
Arriva should consult tenants and bosses... to come up with some scheme
The Arriva parking lot is a desert while workers in the area are thirsty for parking spaces. However, they prefer to park further away from their offices or drive around until they stumble upon a vacant space rather than pay the “prohibitive” rates.
Since the new tariffs were put in place in September, it costs €3.75 to park at the Arriva site and €2.50 if you use the park-and-ride service, which is not on offer, anyway.
A sign says that the “bus stop no longer serves this route” and advises commuters to contact customer care. But the person on the other end of the line has difficulty identifying the site that is being referred to in the first place and has no idea where the bus into Valletta can be caught from.
Architect Christopher Mintoff, whose office is in National Road, Blata l-Bajda, is so frustrated about the parking situation that he has written to the Transport Ministry.
Mr Mintoff feels he and his employees are being “punished” by the transport reform that transformed the “isolated, well-lit and formerly free” parking area into an unused park-and-ride site.
His profession and the fact that he has to visit various locations – some even off the beaten track – every day means using public transport is not an option.
Mr Mintoff’s option is to fork out €18.75 a week, amounting to “an astounding” €1,000 a year, just to park near his office and that is only based on using the park-and-ride site once a day, which is not always the case.
“My office has to stay open longer so clients can come when parking is available, which, in turn, has increased my overtime expenses,” he said, adding that he often has to meet clients himself to accommodate those who give up.
During his “daily frantic search” for a parking space, Mr Mintoff comes across the same cars that used the car park in the past, “meaning they have not migrated to public transport” as was the aim of the exercise.
The result, he insisted, had been more traffic in the already-congested Ħamrun and Floriana, increasing stress levels, petrol costs and pollution.
He has also written to the public transport operator, which said he could buy a seven-day ticket for €10 – still an extra cost of €500 a year.
Mr Mintoff is not alone in his complaints, and the empty car park is evidence of this.
At 9 a.m. on a weekday, the first and only vehicle drives into the site as a “last resort” because it is too expensive. Its owner works at Go in Marsa and uses it only once – maybe twice – a week.
The second solitary car gets there at 9.30 a.m. but only because the driver rarely goes to Valletta and does not know where to deposit his car. He soon realises that even though he has parked, he will not be able to ride and so starts his search for the right bus stop, or a trek into the city from Blata l-Bajda.
Someone else opts – and is fortunate enough – to park outside the site, pointing out that parking is a “nightmare” after 8.30 a.m. elsewhere while the whole lot remains empty.
Several government employees worked just across the road and the working population was increasing. Even Arms Ltd had been relocated there, he noted, adding that the parking area near Gattard House was heavily congested, with cars trying to squeeze in.
“I often end up by St Joseph School in Ħamrun,” he said, “when we have an empty and wasted parking site in front of us”. But he prefers to circle the area than pay the hefty tariff, saying it is a pity no “special” rates have been introduced to encourage its use by employees.
“Arriva should consult the tenants and bosses of these office blocks to come up with some scheme,” he suggested.
Meanwhile, the wide and desolate space has one purpose: it serves as the ideal training ground for learner drivers. By 9.30 a.m., two motoring schools have already used the premises for their clients to perfect their reversing, with zero risk even though the rules and regulations, listed on a poster at the entrance, state that “no learner drivers are allowed to practise on our sites”.