I must congratulate the Today Public Policy Institute for the compilation of their report on healthy mobility in Sliema (www.tppi.org.mt/cms/images/reports/sliema%20mobility.pdf) for putting this urban area, so vital to Malta’s economy, in focus. As a Sliema resident for many years I do not only concur with the observations made but strongly encourage the eventual implementation of the proposals.

Maybe... we do not need any absud theatre; we have enough humour, as it is, from the authorities- Charles Xuereb, Sliema

However may I take this opportunity to add a few remarks of my own experience as a driver, pedestrian and public transport commuter in this busy area.

The report highlights several problems connected to traffic management. One which has been with us for over three decades, concerns the extremely overloaded access to Sliema through Gżira, right at the Manoel Island juncture. It is a classic case of gross traffic mismanagement and a living insult to any responsible authority. Governments never bothered to deal with this bottleneck and today’s authorities seem to ignore it completely. This, in a through-route that probably receives the highest and heaviest, industrial, commerial and tourist, daily traffic inflow on the Island. Once this problem is eleminated with a proper design (there are evident solutions), one can start addressing the state of the roads.

Another problem, which concerns where I live, has to do with a shameful programme of irresponsible building of highrises which are now threatening the Qui-si-Sana-Tigné peninsula becoming a future slum area, under our very noses. While the report recommends a stop to such folly, the blocks keep rising without any social alarm. This area wreaks havoc in parking management. The report recommends that access to certain residential Sliema streets should be limited only to residents (or visitors’) cars. Lying between two popular shopping hubs with attractive swimming spots, this is surely one of the first candidates.

May I also make a few remarks on public transport. After one year I must say that Arriva has made great strides in Sliema. Thanks to generous patronising by foreigners, who, unfortunately, are charged more than us locals, the bus service from Sliema to Valletta, at present, is commendable.

After one year, however, the minor but annoying problem of having a recorded voice on the bus, ridiculously calling bus stops by the name of the area it has not reached yet or just passed , cannot be further tolerated.

According to the transport network Chalet is not where it used to be for ages, the Tower and Fond Għadir have moved and Għar id-Dud has been devoured by id-Dud (ants) in the wrong place! If we had a vibrant street theatre this would be inspirational material for the absurd. Toponymic implications apart, commuters have had enough.

Please shoulder the responsibility and take immediate action as this, especially coming from a foreign company, is now bordering on arrogance. After one year there are no more excuses to re-record and alter the previous recordings, besides changing nonsensical names on bus stops.

Finally the bus stops. When, last year, the beautiful seafront Qui-si-Sana garden was inaugurated, the area bus stop was removed, but never returned to its indispensable place. After several commuters’ complaints, the Sliema local council recently intervened, and at last the skeleton of the future bus shelter appeared...in the wrong place! What a shabby approach to efficiency. Now we have a skeleton, which does not help with the sizzling sun (or the cold winds in winter), on an open seashore.

It appears that the shelter is going to be moved a few metres with the consequential digging up of the new pavement, in order to create a new bay, next to the recently done old one! Building material arrived with the metal skeleton, at the beginning of June (photo) and has been baking in the sun ever since. Sarcastic tongues would say that the bus shelter could not make it back to its rightful place because a flimsy public relations plaque would be isolated! So much for professional plans and design.

As far as I know no buses serve the Tigné penisula from Valletta, on their way to St Julians, so residents have to assemble, with numerous tourists, at the Ferries’ stop, which is daily abanduntly overloaded, and Għar id-Dud, with no shelter. The Għar id-Dud bus stop, equally open to sun and cold, is placed under a permanent shoddy building site which, dangerously, offers some slim shelter to commuters in the absence of another needed bus shelter!

And finally to signage. Signs approaching the Tigné tunnel have been recently posted to help the driving community. A Maltese secondary school student would not have made the elementary mistake of printing the name of this popular locality, with a common French accent, the other way round, rendering it unpronounceable in the language! Le Bailli de Tigné, after whom this area is called, must by now have realised that the Maltese have lost that finesse the Knights had strived so much for. Besides the waste of time and money to correct these signs (perhaps sometime in the future), what a bad impression to all French tourists and EU officials regarding our European credentials.

Maybe, after all, we do not need any absurd theatre; we have enough humour, as it is, from the authorities! Never mind the quality.