Around 8 every morning, my street comes alive with the cacophony of parents (mothers, mostly) walking their children to the local State school. It’s a twice-daily ritual that also serves as a chance for mothers to have a leisurely stroll and a chat. I’ve heard them discuss cooking, nail art, refugees, and on one occasion even DNA testing. For the children, it’s a laugh and a chance to pass the ball a few more times before settling down to their homework.
Now I live in Cospicua. A sociologist might classify my mothers and their children as ‘inner-harbour C2’, ‘struggling’, ‘underprivileged’ or some such.
Cut to the Mġarr-Mosta road, which I drive through two or three times a week. Twice a day, that road heaves under a monumental traffic jam. The culprits-victims are the parents who drive their children to school in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon. They spend several hours a week stuck in traffic, cursing the whimsical nature of contraception.
The school in question is San Anton. Our tame sociologist would rush to describe those parents as ‘A1’, ‘flourishing’, ‘privileged’, and so on.
Certainly on the traffic business, we’ve reached a point where our high standard of living has become our worst enemy. Traffic is not a ‘problem’, it is simply another word for many cars on the road, itself apparently a byword for development and economic success.
I’ve seen it happen in Mumbai. My grandfather has photos of the place and its wonderful wide streets and maidans (a kind of common), taken in 1956. When I first visited the city in 1999, those spaces were still tolerable, if not quite as wonderful.
Like many other Indian cities, Mumbai has now experienced the economic miracle. The last time I was there in 2013 I decided one evening to take a auto-rickshaw to a cinema barely three kilometres from where I lived. By the time I got there, the hero had already despatched a score of villains and danced on a hundred Swiss mountaintops. The trouble with Bollywood is, you first have to drive through Bombay.
No amount of road infrastructure will do anything to the brute fact that the more cars we buy, the more traffic we’ll be stuck in. Assuming we wish to remedy the situation, the only solution I can think of is less cars and smaller ones. Having pretty much given up on public transport, I’d like to talk about the second option.
Thing is, cars are among our most valued objects, second only to our homes. We pour our money, individuality, and aspiration into them. That value is a common currency that cuts across age, class, gender, and occupation. It can be read and deciphered by most, which means that cars have a near-universal appeal.
I kept myself entertained counting empty seats in a traffic jam. I had to stop at 872
For example, my personal likings notwithstanding, I’ve yet to be told that a collection of African carvings, or a new diver’s watch, would set me off rather well. I have, however, been advised, no doubt optimistically, that I deserve a nicer car (‘tixraqlek karozza aħjar’).
The number of cars on the roads is only part of the matter. There is also the fact that people seem to want more sprawling ones. There are more SUVs on Maltese roads these days than in the Australian outback. A Range Rover used to be a rare sight; now, the Evoque is all over the place.
Boy racers, too, have come up in the world. Back in the days, their main weapon of choice used to be a modified Escort. Now, most of them drive executive saloons bought on the imported second-hand car market.
Every time I see a vast Merc with tinted windows, I expect it to contain a captain of industry being rude to his chauffeur while deep in an international teleconference. More likely, it’s an 18-year-old in a vest, with tattoos on his face and a box of tissues on the dash.
Now I have absolutely no problem with any of this. Except it takes up space, acres and acres of it. An SUV or executive saloon is bigger than the average car, and it also seats five people in drawing-room comfort and style. The results are, first, less empty space on the roads, and, second, more empty seats.
The other day I kept myself entertained counting empty seats in a traffic jam. I had to stop at 872, at which point I realised I wasn’t giving enough attention to my driving. Not least since my thoughts drifted to what our skies would look like if the average plane contained the crew and half a dozen passengers. The result would blot out the sun, and I don’t think I’m being dramatic.
It’s a vicious circle. Understandably, the more time we spend in a car, the more spacious and well-appointed a place we want it to be. Couple that with the fact that the average Maltese person spends an hour or two a day being stared at and sized up as a driver, and the results are profound.
It’s not that there are no potential solutions. Some of the more forward-thinking manufacturers now sell models that look like a cross between a motorcycle and a car. They’re small, quiet, electric, and seat two people in comfort. They would also mean tens of thousands less empty seats on the road and, I suspect, greatly reduced levels of cursing.
Except I doubt most people would be interested. There is something vaguely communist and de-personalising about these machines that slams head on into what I’ve just said about cars. I use the C-word intentionally, because I think there is something to be said for it.
No democratically-elected government can stop people from spending their money as they deem fit. It can, however, and by political means, put into place notions of the common good. Much as I generally dislike those words, cars and traffic is one instance in which I begin to get red thoughts.
There is no escape. On one hand it’s sitting in an SUV for hours every day, enjoying one’s freedom to shop and cursing the lack of freedom to move. On the other, it’s a collectivism that gets you places where you can be an individual, and gets you there with ease.
mafalzon@hotmail.com