The Maltese have many admirable qualities, such as enterprise, flexibility and adaptability. Planning is certainly not one of them. It is rare to come across a major project which runs to time or budget, or a major event which does not succeed by the skin of its teeth – despite the organisation, rather than because of it.

The recent debacle over the Sliema-Gżira bus lane is a case in point. A ‘Bus Lane’ (or is it a ‘Priority Lane?’) was established by Transport Malta as it is perfectly entitled to do under subsidiary legislation. But it appeared at first that, according to the local tribunal commissioner, this was not legal as, according to what was reported, it was illegal to have a bus lane in a two-lane highway.

As a consequence of this ruling, local wardens were instructed only to issue warnings to motorists, not fines, thus resulting in thousands of euros in fines being lost.

The whole issue surfaced after Sliema local councillor, Michael Briguglio, asked for statistics establishing the number of dangerous drivers apprehended for speeding through the bus lane to avoid the heavy traffic congestion created by the bus lane.

It was reported they were not being fined but were simply being warned, thus undermining the deterrent effect of the law and encouraging dangerous driving.

It turns out that the whole saga arose from a series of misunderstandings. The tribunal commissioner denied she had ever decreed it was illegal or had issued any instructions on the matter. The Guard and Warden Services chairman said that “the Central Region had instructed wardens not to issue tickets but [instead to] issue warnings on particular days, as part of an educational campaign”. For the rest of the time, he said, the law had to be enforced.

Although this turned out to be a storm in a tea-cup, the Sliema-Gżira bus lane illustrates two key points about planning in Malta.

The first concerns the practical consequences of decisions taken without a proper understanding of possible consequences. The second highlights the number of layers and fingers in the pie which are affected by such decisions. At the bottom of the heap is the poor suffering member of the public.

The practical consequences of the decision to add a last leg to the bus lane along the Strand leading to the bottle-neck at Manoel Island have been controversial. The Transport Minister claims that it has worked well. But countless drivers have a different view, as the daily tailbacks to Tignè Point and the crawling traffic at peak hours attest.

Moreover, the fact that drivers act in a “cowboy” fashion in frustration by using the bus lane to overtake traffic also indicates that the traffic management it was meant to improve was flawed. It appears that the traffic regulator is now belatedly working on a plan to improve the Manoel Island junction where the hold-ups occur.

Surely, good foresight and planning should have led to this junction being created before, not after, the introduction of the bus lane extension.

As to the numerous players in this saga – the Sliema council, the Guard and Wardens Services, the tribunal commissioner and Transport Malta itself – the lack of coordination and cooperation as each entity ploughs its own furrow might explain why the introduction of any project in Malta is fraught, leading to delays, crossed wires and misunderstandings.

There is a need for coordinated planning and cooperation from the start of any project.

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