In the current vogue of road building and junction tweaking, Transport Minister Ian Borg is set to increase the capacity of several junctions in Bob the Builder mode with works to be completed before the annual school opening ‘carmageddon’.

With many dire warnings of the dangers and seduction of induced demand, from traffic experts with standpoints that are as diverse as their political hues, Borg is trying to outbuild our daily dose of 40 cars. In juxtaposition to this impossible Herculean task, the equally (but perhaps wiser) Finance Minister Edward Scicluna proposed building and investing in cycling infrastructure because of the huge savings that the State would make in reducing the cost of diabetes, heart disease, numerous cancers and of course the ticking time bomb of obesity.

The two ways of viewing the problem are completely in opposition to each other. One is clearly aware that there are huge benefits of an active population, while the other subscribes to something called the Stevenage effect.

Stevenage was a post-war English new town that built cycling infrastructure on the grand Dutch scale, but everybody still drove because roads were large, parking plentiful and driving was, much like Borg’s image of Malta, just simply easier. Which is why alternatives like cycling, even though there was adequate infrastructure, unlike Malta, failed.

Within the rather toxic environment of the last few weeks, it is hard to see how Borg will make good on the previous transport minister’s pledge to double cycling every year or his own party’s rhetoric (and both sides made the same promise) to create more cycle lanes as an electoral pledge.

Given the millions being spent on road improvements, what amount is being budgeted to make good on the promise of cycle lanes?

There is no better time for this than now. When all the roads are being redone, to add cycle lanes, lanes for which there was no space, but ample space for another traffic lane?

Evidently there are some weighty questions that Borg must prepare himself to answer.

Firstly, given the millions being spent on road improvements, what amount is being budgeted to make good on the promise of cycle lanes and other cycling infrastructure?

Secondly, why has the National Cycling Strategy not been issued for public consultation, despite being ready in draft before the election?

Thirdly and significantly, if he intends to stick to the former minister’s target of doubling cycling each year up until 2033 how will he do so?

Somewhat tricky beyond the two per cent modal share tipping point, forecast in 2019, where segregated cycling infrastructure is paramount in encouraging those who would not normally cycle to do so.

Particularly when remembering the Labour Party’s electoral pledge to build cycle lanes – let’s hope they are useful practical ones that move people as efficiently on bikes as we seek to move cars. Perhaps more so.

Jim Wightman is PRO of BAG Malta.