Cars should not be allowed to park on main roads, freeing up space for traffic to flow and for the creation of cycle lanes and bus lanes, according to traffic expert Manfred Boltze.
Boltze was in Malta on behalf of the German-Maltese Business Council and the German Embassy, and addressed a conference last week. Although he had only been in Malta for a short time, he said the problems with traffic were obvious.
“Your roads are clogged with parked cars. You need to get rid of them and create more space. Of course, people must be allowed to own a car – but it does not have to be parked so close to their activity; people can walk 100m or 200m!
Changing long-standing behaviour is clearly not easy
“It is not about restricting parking for residents; in Germany, this has very high priority. It is more about commuters who want to park in front of their office,” he said.
He was quick to add that the problem could not be solved by applying this concept to one road but that there had to be a whole network as problems would just get shifted from one road to another.
“In the early 1990s, we introduced comprehensive parking management concepts in all the cities in Germany and the amount of parking was adapted – usually reduced – to make space for other road users.”
He boiled down the entire issue of traffic management to three words: avoid, shift and control. Changing long-standing behaviour is clearly not easy but he said that it was possible, given a combination of stick and carrot. Neither is it possible to keep extending the infrastructure to cope with demand, not merely because of the cost but also because of the space and environmental impact.
His proposed “stick” is to use various pricing instruments, ranging from road tolls to vehicle taxes and parking fees.
“There are many examples of restrictive measures which have been accepted. But it is important for the stick to be paired with a carrot. Once you have done something about the restriction, you have to use the space you win to introduce cycle lanes, and bus lanes so you can offer a faster and more punctual bus service. A bus lane is very efficient as a bus carries dozens of people compared with a car that very often carries only one person,” he said.
He stressed that congestion was not only about the waste of time.
“Most people are not aware that there are nearly three times as many early deaths from air pollution as there are than from accidents. This should be a very good motivator to do something, not only for ourselves but for our children and for all society,” he said.