The big ‘news’ this week was the Electrogas tanker entering Marsaxlokk port. The different reactions to this happening mirror the divisions of Maltese society.
As very amusingly put across in an online meme, Nationalist party supporters saw a huge monument to corruption taking over the bay – a dangerous gas bomb about to explode at any minute. Strangely enough none of the same concern was shown over the Qajjenza gas storage facilities which had been around for donkey’s years.
On the other hand, Labour supporters dismissed the tanker as an inconsequential – a mere boat bringing clean energy to Malta and a boon to the island.
The most ironic aspect of these reactions is that they are precisely the opposite of the way respective supporters greeted the construction of the power station in Delimara under a Nationalist administration. Back then, Nationalists welcomed it as a necessity, dismissing the hideousness of the chimney and the way it spoilt the view. And Labour supporters thought it was a vindictive imposition on the South.
The widely divergent partisan views cloud the real issue: why the government has not published the risk-assessment studies to date. Electrogas representatives have stated that they do not have a problem with the publication of the studies, so the government has no reason to drag its feet on this. As it is, its reticence is raising further suspicions about the whole project.
In the Gridlock Island which Malta has become, people wake up before dawn, pull on their clothes, stuff a cereal bar in their mouth and hope to be on the road before six. Schoolchildren are waiting on bus stops some 15 minutes later.
The average commute from places like Żabbar to Msida lasts some two hours – two hours of agonising stop-and-start inching towards the workplace in traffic which flows as slowly as treacle. This is compounded by the tension about finding a parking place at one’s destination and the depressing prospect of a similar journey back home.
The widely divergent partisan views cloud the real issue:why the government has not published the risk-assessment studies to date
At this point in time, I would say it is the issue which is affecting people’s quality of life most. It’s useless living in the most delightful country ever if a good chunk of your day is spent in the inside of a vehicle.
Which brings us to what can be done to alleviate matters. It is all very well to state loftily that if one is not part of the solution, then one is part of the problem. But it doesn’t quite pan out that way. Because unless a sufficiently large number of people form part of the solution, then there is still going to be a problem.
There will be no significant effect on traffic if – for example – only a few hundred people start catching the bus. The minimal decrease in the number of cars on the road will be offset by the number of new cars joining the fray every day.
In terms of the awfully over-used and clichéd business-speak – we need a paradigm shift – a huge percentage of people suddenly switching to a different mode of transport other than their private vehicles.
For this to happen – and to work successfully – two things have to take place. First, the situation has to reach absolute rock bottom in terms of duration of car trips and anger levels. Having reached peak frustration, people will inevitably have to find an alternative.
And this is where it gets tricky. Because if the alternative form of transport is not efficient or safe enough (the two major factors influencing transport choice), we’re back to where we started from – fuming on congested roads.
The jams are getting so bad that even our reading material is traffic-inspired. I’ve just re-read Ben Elton’s Gridlock. Even though it was published more than 20 years ago, this satirical whodunit is still hilariously spot-on.
As the blurb on the back goes, “Gridlock is when a city dies. Killed in the name of freedom. Killed in the name of oil and steel. Choked on carbon monoxide and strangled with a pair of fluffy dice. How did it come to this? How did the ultimate freedom machine end up paralysing us all? How did we end up driving to our own funeral, in somebody else’s gravy train?”
The book makes for hilarious reading – a necessary antidote to these clogged-up commutes.
drcbonello@gmail.com