Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

It may be the last thing frustrated motorists want to hear, but could reducing parking spaces actually alleviate congestion problems in the long run?

Cycling advocates have been making the point for years, using the same argument to oppose extensive road-widening projects. Now, however, it has been taken up by the Planning Authority as an element of policy.

“Only when car users realise that it is not possible to park in Sliema will they start to consider shifting to other modes of transport,” the PA said in a recent inquiry by the Ombudsman into parking issues in the town, citing its own Strategic Plan for the Environment and Development (SPED).

“As long as parking spaces are ample – and cheap, if not free – car use will continue to rise and bus patronage and use of green modes will continue to decline.”

The logic behind this is what is known as ‘induced demand’ – simply put, inc-reasing the supply of certain things leads to more people wanting to use them.

In this case, increasing parking or road space does not alleviate congestion but just increases the people using cars.

James Wightman of the Bicycle Advocacy Group believes the truth of this argument is apparent. The 41-odd cars added to the road every day, he told the Times of Malta, were enough to fill two car lanes stretching all the way from Ċirkewwa to Marsascala every year, more than the government’s ambitious plans to upgrade the road network can keep up with.

“It doesn’t matter where you create space, whether as parking or as road space; you’re just encouraging people to drive without actually making it easier to drive,” Mr Wightman said.

“We can’t keep doing this. We have to get people to use anything other than a private car. There aren’t many ways to do that and they may be quite distasteful, but the government has to bite the bullet at some point.”

Mr Wightman argued that residents’ parking schemes could be implemented to soften the blow, but insisted that since traffic also impacted the reliability of public transport, the situation could not be expected to resolve itself without intervention. “Something should have been done several years back.

We have to get people to use anything other than a private car... The government has to bite the bullet

“People say it won’t work, but has building more and more roads worked?”

Nevertheless, for the residents and communities already struggling with parking or traffic issues, the idea of intentionally making the situation worse seems unthinkable.

Sliema mayor Anthony Chircop, whose complaint to the Ombudsman sparked the inquiry on which the PA commented, has had to witness the town’s limited parking spaces get eaten away by an explosion of outdoor catering areas, as well as developers who do not provide enough spaces for the occupants of new apartments and offices.

He considers the PA’s argument in favour of reducing parking spaces a non-starter, arguing that while public transport remains unreliable, drivers are not going to change their mentality no matter how scarce parking becomes.

“If anything, the current situation encourages more people to come to the area, because the same developments taking up spaces are attracting more visitors,” Mr Chircop said.

“It definitely will not achieve what the PA is arguing it will.”

He noted that the Ombudsman shared this view: Commissioner for Environment and Planning David Pace concluded that fines for developers who create a parking shortfall should be doubled to €4,000 and that the PA’s argument did “not do much to solve the parking problem various localities are facing”.

When asked whether it agreed with the Planning Authority, the Transport and Infrastructure Ministry – which also oversees planning – opted to hedge its bets, focusing on the need for a comprehensive plan and insisting that focusing on isolated actions to solve the problem would be “shortsighted”.

“While adding car parking facilities may, in itself, be deemed to encourage increased use of private vehicles to reach a location, we must also consider the requirements of the area’s residents,” a spokeswoman told this newspaper.

“Rather than focusing on single actions or unilateral decisions, the stakeholders concerned need to work together and strike a balance that encourages the increased use of alternative modes of travel without compromising residents’ quality of life,” the ministry spokeswoman added.

Similarly, the ministry said road-widening efforts could be seen to encourage the use of cars only “if considered in isolation and out of context” and were mostly vital short- and medium-term measures to bring the decades-old road network up to scratch for modern requirements.

“This ongoing optimisation does not only reduce travelling times and air pollution in our localities. It also lowers accident risks, adapts the network to changes in travel patterns and introduces new resources that facilitate alternative modes of transport.”

The spokeswoman said these efforts were to be complemented by initiatives to attract more public transport users, and that new projects planned to ease parking problems in several towns would be carried out alongside studies to assess the viability of long-term options such as rapid mass transport.