Regarding the recent supplement supplied with The Sunday Times of Malta that showcased the ongoing and future projects of the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, the Bicycling Advocacy Group had written to the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Joe Mizzi, on February 20 to express our concerns with the Marsa gyratory system flyover project. To date, both this letter and those to Transport Malta have been unanswered.

The Bicycling Advocacy Group was given a very quick and partial view of the plans in 2013, but our recent concerns stem from the fact that the cycling uptake has exceeded expectations and that one of the questions we are repeatedly asked by members over the last few years is ‘how do I get across Marsa?’

This indicates the importance of catering for a much larger route capacity than was first thought by both ourselves and Transport Malta.

While the photomontage shows the usual vista of open and direct roads, artists’ impressions – like car adverts – always seem to be drawn at 4am when the roads are empty. The routes for people on bicycles are inefficient and somewhat obscure.

Significantly this will hardly help the minister achieve his own ambitious target of an annual doubling of cycling’s modal share, which is vital if any multimodal rapid transit scheme is to succeed.

While we do understand that the idea is to get cyclists off the overpasses, this should not, however, compromise trip efficiency. The Marsa scheme should therefore consider faster competitive and athletic riders commuting at higher speeds, and not alienate them as in the case of the Coast Road.

This will just force them back onto the carriageway. Equally, the design still uses serpentines rather than modern flowing curved ramps that cater for larger types of bicycles such as tandems, cargo bikes and bike trailers. These too will end up back on the carriageway.

Secondly, cycling infrastructure is developing all the time and recent changes to EU law regarding the inclusion of cycling into TEN-T network junctions, much like the Kappara project, have been ignored.

Importantly, the number of people using bicycles to commute has escalated to a point where we are no longer confident that the scheme as published will cope with the demand, especially where many routes come together under the very noses of Transport Malta themselves, under the A3 Towers.

Hopefully, with so much cycling so close, some of that will rub off on Transport Malta themselves, with some of our planners cycling to work. But by then it will be too late to change any of the designs, designs that need to be urgently revisited if we want our transport systems to succeed.