We do need to improve our transport network, this was never in dispute. It’s how we do it that is.

The challenge is to create a real change in how we travel. There lies the problem. Clearly, those unwilling to change should rejoice at those who do, voluntarily, but to a car-centric society these inoffensive ahead-of-the-curve few vary from being viewed as outcasts to, even more absurdly, threats.

Infrastructure Malta’s quite cheesy claim that everyone is getting 12 minutes extra leisure time a week certainly had a lot of people on bikes and pedestrians wondering where their 12 minutes went? Most have seen their commute get a little longer with each improvement. The reality is commuters’ trips are becoming longer, not due to traffic but design.

Poor design. Consider how Marsa removed traffic lights for car drivers yet pedestrians, people on bikes and, to a certain extent, bus users will have to potentially wait at six lifts to cross the scheme.  And the list is getting longer: Tal-Balal’s single-sided footpath and dearth of pedestrian crossings; Kappara’s unfinished cycle lane or still hole-in-the-ground pedestrian subway; the atrocious SMITHS cycling corridors. These stand as a testament to how much of an afterthought modal shift really is. In road planning, afterthoughts are expensive.

Let’s hope the 30 per cent (€3.1 million) earmarked from the commuted parking space scheme, the Island-Wide Green Transport Fund and a good part of the €43 million our new roads save annually will be put to good use, correcting and adapting the road network we have only just built to include alternatives and encourage car drivers to leave their vehicles at home.

I guess that, like me, you’ll agree it’s got to be one heck of a scheme. Yes, road improvements are all well and good but this was the easy part. The real challenge, made all the more difficult, is how Transport Malta, Infrastructure Malta and the Transport Minister himself will not just encourage but prioritise and actualise the modal shift.