Local councils planning to introduce residential parking schemes ought to think again before going ahead with their plans. Irrespective of whether or not residential parking schemes are legally discriminatory, it makes sense for councils that have been allowed to launch such schemes by the transport authority to mark time and, as it has been suggested by many, consider first the problem in its entirety before putting up the signposts. True, there is no easy solution to the parking problem but if residential parking schemes are introduced haphazardly they can only add to deep frustration and inconvenience that many already have to endure in Malta's traffic congested streets.

With the rapid annual growth in the number of new cars on the roads, successive governments could have foreseen the parking problem that was bound to arise in many key localities but, apparently, they did not and, if they did, they failed to come up with solutions. Had Malta had a decent public transport service, maybe the situation would not have been as bad as it is today, with many preferring to use their own cars rather than the buses. Years and years of talk about reform in the service have not led to any substantial improvement. And, strangely enough, few entrepreneurs have thought of building car parks. The end result of all this is the chaotic traffic situation we have today, which is bound to get even worse as more and more new and second-hand cars are registered.

Would residential parking schemes ease the situation or make it worse? With governments having markedly failed to tackle the problem, it is certainly time for cool heads to take stock of the situation and see how it can be handled without causing further unnecessary hardship. Whether public transport improves or not - and, on the basis of past experience, few hold much hope that it would ever meet general expectations - it is clear that the traffic and parking problem in conurbation areas is unlikely to ease, unless, for example, the country takes a completely different course and considers what building contractor Angelo Xuereb has for long been suggesting, a monorail.

Has such a proposal been ever officially considered? What would be its cost today? A monorail linking, say, Qormi, Birkirkara, Swieqi, St Andew's, St Julians, Sliema, and Valletta, could revolutionise public transport. If the proposal might have been considered futuristic when it was first made by Mr Xuereb many years ago, it is certainly not today. The biggest problem, no doubt, lies in how to finance such a huge project.

Of more immediate consideration, however, is the need for the creation of parking lots on the fringes of key habitation or business areas, or, in the absence of sites where these can be built, the building of underground parks.

For it simply does not make sense for any council, more so that of such an important locality as Sliema, for example, to even think of introducing a residential parking scheme without first ensuring that adequate parking space is first provided for those who have to visit the place for one reason or another. It is difficult to park in Valletta or Floriana but imagine what the situation would have been like without the multi-storey car park built opposite the Hotel Phoenicia.

So, before going ahead with the introduction of residential parking schemes, councils would first need to see how the parking problem could first be solved without creating more problems to the locality.