A cyclists’ lobby group is complaining off being left out of the consultation on large infrastructural projects.

Michelle Attard Tonna, from the Bicycling Advocacy Group, told reporters on Tuesday that the recently announced €55 million project to upgrade the road infrastructure between Rabat and the Mrieħel Bypass, was the latest major project the group had not been involved in.

“We have experience and certain expertise in cycling safety requirements, but the authorities are not involving us in these major projects,” she said.

The latest project to be announced, cyclists lamented, did not appear to include any safe and attractive cycling infrastructure either.

The group will be meeting with Transport Minister Ian Borg to discuss the matter on Thursday.

Gathered on Attard’s Mdina Road, around a dozen cyclists questioned why the government was focusing on facilitating car traffic when emissions and the island’s poor air quality had recently been singled out by the European Commission as major concerns.

Transport Malta, they said, had been expected to release a National Cycling Strategy last year, however, to date, the lobby group still had no knowledge of what this contained.

Listing some of the average cyclist’s concerns, Ms Attard Tonna said cycling lanes were often too narrow, vanished halfway through a route, or were only available in one direction.

These concerns, she said, had been raised with the authorities a number of times in the past, but so far the group had received limited feedback.

Later during the press conference, 21-year-old Attard resident Luke Abela said he regularly commuted from home to the university in Msida, where he was a student.

But the current infrastructure, he said, hardly encouraged commuters to leave their cars behind and opt for alternative methods of transportation.

A recent study by the university student council had found that around 44 per cent of those who drove to university would consider cycling as an alternative means of transport if it were safer.