In commenting about improving the way students cross the Tal-Qroqq ‘skate park’ roundabout, Jean Karl Soler quite rightly feels that placing 20 speed humps on the Birkirkara bypass is absurd, yet even the pedestrian priority lane in Pietà has speed humps now. Let alone the 60 or so ramps, quasi-speed humps on the Mġarr bypass shared footpath.
Equally absurd, but very common on most streets where people live, are the pavements which undulate due to entrances for garages or which are frequently obstructed with all manner of street furniture. Basically, the sidewalk has been sidelined.
Unfortunately, while it is acceptable to talk about the value of a car driver’s time, it has somehow become unacceptable to talk about the value of a pedestrian’s time. Yet we need to. Particularly for any mass transit scheme to succeed.
This is our point, a quick, efficient and safe route from where people park in Swatar to reach university. Much like the rest of the pedestrian approaches to the university, the late 1960s- style labyrinthine subway is now flanked on three sides by university buildings and has been a problem for decades.
If a pelican crossing is so unpalatable, perhaps it is time to consider redesigning the subway to make it more secure and efficient.
The fence is just a sticking plaster solution. It hasn’t stopped people’s suicidal behaviour, so it’s not effectively addressing the root cause either.
Importantly we need to start taking a pedestrian’s time seriously, if we really want a monorail, a metro, underground or any other means of mass transit. Vital if we want to keep cars flowing.
A pelican crossing (there are two already on the bypass) might be a little edgy, but if it made a minister or two splutter their cornflakes over the Times of Malta and got people talking (after all we even got Soler to write a letter and the Mrieħel bridge is suddenly back in the news) about more efficient safe pedestrian infrastructures, then that’s not really a bad thing either.
Basically we need to stop sidelining the sidewalks.