I have the perception that our quality of air has seriously degraded during the last few years. Driving back from Rabat to Qormi every day, I can see a brown layer of air covering most of the island, stretching from Mosta to Naxxar, Sliema to Marsa. It scares me to think we all breathe in these fumes.

I was recently searching for figures on air pollution on Mepa’s website. It clearly shows that their statistic sites have been designed by some IT gurus, showing fancy charts and numbers, without really giving a clear picture. I finally figured out that during eight days in December, the concentration of nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide was above European air quality standards.

Air pollution originates from many sources such as traffic, electricity generation and combustion. My impression is that traffic is the main reason for the poor quality of air we enjoy. One does not need to have a PhD to realise that the sheer amount of cars, trucks and buses contribute to this. I am still amazed that different Maltese governments have failed to introduce an alternative to private transport.

Despite the privatisation of public transport, the introduction of fancy coloured oversized buses, no alternatives have been delivered. My recent bus trip from Qormi to St Julian’s lasted 100 minutes. Miracles are once again expected from the new public transport operator after the first failed ‘revolution’.

I haven’t seen any vision on transport from the government, nor have I seen any public transport policy papers, only monorail studies, bridges and road network extensions.

Simple immediate and ‘free’ solutions exist to solve the problem of road congestion. Dual carriage roads need to have one lane reserved for public transport, heavy fines for drivers using bus lanes should be introduced, the tax on vehicles and the price of petrol must increase to fund public transport and the public bus operator should be allowed to design and operate the network without government interference.

There also need to be alternatives to public transport, perhaps the introduction of ‘velo-lib’, a bicycle rental system used in many European towns, and car pooling would also certainly help.

I really hope that I will see the day when my bus trip from Qormi to St Julian’s will only last a maximum of 20 minutes, with the bus departing at its scheduled time.