Much has been written about the Gżira bus lane, with many people also commenting that bus lanes should be reserved for roads with a greater number of lanes. Clearly not the case.
There is the opposite along Pieta’, where two lanes that eventually gain a further bus lane – which everyone conveniently forgets gets buses out of the way of cars – that still ends up packed with traffic.
The problem? Simply too many cars – and cars that also slow down buses.
People want an efficient transport system. Bus lanes are a way of providing that, with the unfortunate outcome that they do take up some ‘car’ space.
Admittedly, they cannot be placed just anywhere and need intelligent placement. But they are needed.
The question we should be really asking is ‘why’ in the 30 minutes an MP was stuck in traffic, no bus managed to reach the bus lane, when there were supposed to be one everyfive minutes?
Were they again stuck intraffic, with largely private vehicles, elsewhere?
That’s the responsible question we should be asking and tryingto solve.
If we can do that we will make buses efficient, encourage people to use them and leave their carat home (even MPs), which would reduce congestion to everyone’s benefit.