Transport Minister Joe Mizzi said in Parliament this evening that a single lane was sufficient to handle the traffic along Gzira seafront heading towards Valletta.

Replying to a parliamentary question by Nationalist MP Robert Arrigo, he said that Transport Malta studies showed that the average number of cars using this road heading towards Valletta was 763 per hour at its peak while the average number of buses was 33 per hour. The monitoring was made between September 2014 and January 2015.

A single lane could handle up to 1300 cars per hour which meant that current demand, at 763 cars per hour, was only 59 per cent of maximum capacity.

The minister also pointed out that the decision to have a bus lane in Gzira seafront was taken under the former government in October 2012 when the application for EU funds under the Modus project was submitted.