The recurrent theme of traffic congestion featured in a recent editorial in this newspaper (‘Traffic: causes and cures’, July 1).
The causes of our traffic congestion are many, but the implication in your editorial that the increase in private car use is attributable to our ‘recent economic growth’ is misleading. It seems a typical Maltese misconception that people use alternative transport options because they cannot afford a car.
It is quite the other way around: cycling and public transport are mainstream mobility options in most technologically advanced, affluent countries such as Holland, Denmark and Germany. Moreover, use of public transport and bicycles is distributed evenly across all income groups.
The problem to be addressed is excessive car dependency which is simply the result of decades-long failure to provide amenities which encourage alternative mobility options. This includes, in particular, neglect of public transport which reduced it to low-status transport.
Years of allocating priority to private car traffic has resulted in the car becoming Malta’s default mobility option even for the shortest of trips – it has also made the car a powerful status symbol. Unlike other countries, Malta persists with misguided policies which favour car use.
Transport Malta thus remains intent on creating more parking facilities, widening roads, creating flyovers, implementing ‘traffic management schemes’ and even insane felling of mature trees to facilitate traffic flow. Such policies ignore the well-known ‘law of induced demand’ – that providing more amenities for cars simply makes traffic worse by encouraging yet more car use.
Traffic congestion is also a health issue that cannot continue to be ignored. Pollution from traffic congestion exposes people to increased risk of (lung) cancer, heart/lung disease and (parents please note) permanent damage to children’s lungs. Other subtle negative effects are associated with severe traffic congestion.
Apart from impairing quality of life, increased time spent travelling to and from work in congested roads predisposes to lowered frustration tolerance, overweight, raised blood pressure and general physical unfitness. It also decreases the time which might otherwise have been available for indulging in healthy activities.
Providing more road space for traffic simply induces more people to drive their car – as discovered nearly a century ago. We are stuck in a time warp
Added to all this there is a domino effect which exerts a negative ripple effect over coming generations. Our University students clamour for parking space on campus. This contrasts with advanced countries where it is routine for both university students and school children to cycle to university/school or use public transport.
Having grown up conditioned to being comfortably transported in the parental car or by bus to school, today’s students now expect parking space at the campus almost as a right. There has also been talk of a University underground car park to accommodate them. Another sad consequence is that Malta’s children are denied the (healthy) joys and adventures of riding a bicycle which they would normally experience in bicycle-friendly countries.
Efficient public transport is overlooked as a positive contributor to health. An efficient public transport system offers an opportunity for regular exercise because it obliges people to walk to and from transport access points and interchanges. Psychological well-being, including ability to concentrate, is higher for people who commute actively on foot, by bicycle (especially) or with public transport, compared to driving a car during peak times.
Switching from private car transport to active transport is a feasible low-cost option to encourage people to keep healthy and lower prevalence of cardiovascular disease, obesity and diabetes. This applies particularly to commuting by bicycle.
Beside lower sickness absence from work, people who regularly cycle (to work) benefit from greatly improved fitness and reduction of cardiovascular disease, cancer and obesity. Bicycle mobility is also cost-effective. The benefit-to-cost ratios of road infrastructure to encourage cycling, as worked out using the WHO Economic Assessment Tool (HEAT), is about five times the amount invested.
About 60 per cent of the benefit comes from health cost savings due to increased physical fitness, 20 per cent from traffic congestion relief, 20 per cent from other benefits as fewer traffic accidents and improved ambience. The resultant positive effect from reduction in the burden of disease from increased physical activity of cycling has been calculated to outweigh by a ratio of between five and 50 the theoretical negative outcomes from exposure to air pollution and accident injury.
But Malta’s traffic conundrum is set to continue. Attempts at facilitating bus transit by the creation of bus lanes are opposed by the car lobby and the lanes are withdrawn. Recommended ‘cures’ for our transport remain monotonous car-centric variations of ‘ensuring that Malta has the roads it needs’, ‘improving traffic flow in black spots’ and so on.
All this is blithely indifferent to the simple fact that providing more road space for traffic simply induces more people to drive their car – as discovered nearly a century ago. We are stuck in a time warp.
The true cause of our traffic problem must be identified and put on the agenda for a realistic solution to be found. Such a solution must include provisions for encouraging alternative mobility – walking and cycling for short/medium trips and, especially, public transport.
George Debono is a retired doctor with a research background and a special interest in health and environment matters.