While the tunnels may represent a quick and easy way for most traffic to surmount certain geographical barriers, the banning of bicycles from them presents significant challenges to the cyclist that would be unacceptable to other road users.

The least inconveniencing of the tunnels may appear to be those at Tal-Qroqq especially travelling south where deviating over the roundabout only accounts for an extra 50 metres. The route northbound however involves using the subway, but this indirect pedestrian route entails a three-minute delay compounded by having to ride up the narrower, equally busy, single lane slip road and dismount adjacent to the Lautier goods entrance. Neither is the subway fully lit or secure after dark. Avoiding the subway, riders are faced with a two kilometre detour to the new university entrance and back out again.

Diverting around the Sta Venera tunnels via the roundabouts immediately before and after involve a stiff climb with an additional serpentine kilometre through the back streets of Ħamrun. Leaving the regional road southbound involves a torturous non-stop climb due to the current lack of pavement, not conducive to either traffic flow or safety.

In a similar way the St Julians tunnels represent not only a three to a three-and-a-half-kilometre detour but significant climbs and descents of several hundred feet.

However, these pale to insignificance when considering the airport tunnel cutting across a four-kilometre runway and surrounding infrastructure. This involves a massive detour to avoid the short stretch between the airport and Kirkop roundabouts, which usually take a rider two minutes to cover. The alternative is a five-minute ride-walk-ride should you be inclined to dismount, and dismount you'll have to, as there are no ramps excluding those there by accident rather than design. Not that you'd want to walk through it. It is dimly lit, littered and the transport authorities have a drop-in-the-ocean approach to air quality, which means this is not the healthiest or safest of places to walk through and especially not a good idea for asthmatics! If however you choose not to come off the bike and be gassed, the alternative is a nine- to 10-kilometre detour unless you are lucky enough for your journey to encompass the Ħal-Farruġ roundabout, which reduces the distance down to a mere 7.5 kilometres, on average a 14-minute extended journey time.

Now let's be honest: If someone said to car drivers that they were going to delay their daily commute by say just three minutes each way every day, especially by slowing them down to a crawl in a polluted tunnel or by a 14-minute diversion, many car drivers would have a tizzy fit.

Yet because a cyclist questioned the wisdom of current thinking, and asked what's wrong with a legally lit bicycle using the tunnels, the ADT appears to have adopted a don't care, won't care attitude and kept silent!