When I was at university – shh! – more or less two decades ago, none of my peers had a car. A couple on my course had a motorbike, the rest of the thousands of us commuted by bus. Cars mostly belonged to mature students and campus staff.
Fast forward two decades and only a couple of hundreds bus it these days. In fact we learnt this week that out of a population of 13,000 students and staff buzzing around the University of Malta, almost 10,000 get there by car. That includes students as young as 18.
The mobility survey, carried out for an EU programme working on improving mobility on Mediterranean campuses, also revealed that two per cent of students used a bicycle and three per cent a motorbike – which is basically close to nil.
We have reached the ridiculous stage where parking almost takes double the space than the actual building itself: 41,000 square metres dedicated to parking cars, and 28,000 square metres to study space. What to do?
In the short term there is something that can be done: incentives for students to take up motor-biking instead of car-driving. If at least half of those 10,000 would swap their car for a scooter, then all the parking problems would be solved because in each car bay you can fit four bikes. University could be a study model, a prototype, if you will, and if successful, then it can be extended to the rest of the island – which, with a rainless weather like ours, is just perfect for biking.
Of course, I understand that for young students the car is a symbol of freedom, of power, of wealth, of noise (we’re Mediterranean, it’s our way of marking territory) and, somehow it’s a particular kind of masculinity. However, students aged 18 to 23 would still be at a period in their lives when they’re free spirits, when riding with their hair blowing in the wind is fun and when they don’t need to carry a million bags for their children as they ferry them around.
Donating an organ when you are alive is one of the few ways you can measure love
University is the ideal location to try it out – to wheel out a two-wheel campaign complete with bank loan offers, credits in motor biking and free lessons. I know that once hooked, students won’t go back. Imagine not having to spend two hours driving round the campus or not having to park in Swatar and walk it all the way from there. Imagine parking right in front of the lecture room.
Most renowned universities abroad – such as Georgetown University, Cambridge and Nottingham – have blanket banned campus parking for undergraduate students, for pollution and road safety reasons. There would be absolutely no need for this if they just encouraged students to take up biking.
The problem is that there is great concern – from parents especially – about road safety. And they are right. The university-motor-biking campaign needs to come with a heavy dose of road education. Cyclists and bikers on Maltese roads are considered as irritant, pesky flies, at best. At worst it can feel like car drivers are out to get you.
It’s not the first time that I’d be scooting down a one-lane street and a car driver flies past me, nearly pushing me straight to the sofa of the front rooms of houses I’d be driving past. Also car drivers seem to have a problem with lane-sharing. When you drive in the space between lanes to cut through traffic, they often try to prevent it by abruptly blocking the lane with their car when they spot a bike coming.
How do you all beat this? With educational campaigns. And with enforcement.
The latter worries me, for we are living in a time in Malta when enforcement is alien. In fact it is hysterically hilarious that we are discussing introduction of marijuana – which would need strict legislation and administration – when we don’t even know the meaning of enforcement.
How can we ensure more road safety? We need to see plainclothes policemen sent out on bikes to monitor how motor vehicles treat them. If someone passes too closely, tailgates or turns across their path, uniformed colleagues up the road would pop out to give out advice or a fine.
The sooner this is done, the better, because two wheels are the immediate solution for this insane traffic of ours. Trapped in our cars, we are becoming increasingly insensible, routinely stressing and road-raging.
Please undergrads, show us the light for a better future: take up biking and empty those university car parks.
Donating an organ when you are alive is, in my book, one of the few ways you can measure love. I know the people close to my heart I would unhesitatingly give a kidney to if they were in need. However, would I give a kidney to someone I don’t know and never met? That’s a very difficult question, and one man – Nationalist MP Ivan Bartolo just answered that. It takes a very sensitive social conscience and a lot of pluck. Bartolo is an inspiration to all and thanks to him, a young man who had been living life stuck to a dialysis machine will now get a new lease of life.
It’s the only news this week that made believe in the humanity of human nature.
krischetcuti@gmail.com
Twitter: @krischetcuti