Up until now the Road Infrastructure Safety Management directive (2008/96/EC) has focused almost solely on the safety of car occupants on the TEN-T network. This meant that the needs of other road users – cyclists, pedestrians and motorcyclists – were only included much later in the detailed design stage, making their provisions something of an afterthought.

Tragically demonstrated in the Kappara project, if we are not careful the Attard central project will repeat the mistakes of the Mrieħel bypass, or Lija and Iklin, dividing communities and making connecting them by car the default method.

Launched on May 17, the EU’s 3rd Mobility Package, especially article 6B, is set to change all that. The proposal is to amend the directive to include the needs of cyclists, pedestrians and motorcyclists using and crossing the TEN-T networks at a much earlier stage with stricter detailed design road safety audits.

Importantly, this does not just include the new Attard and Santa Luċia schemes, but would include existing roads as well as those previously outside the scope of the TEN-T network, such as the new schemes at Kappara, Lija, Qormi and Luqa. A network-wide road assessment and road safety inspection that could re-engineer roads to move people rather than just individual disconnected cars.

This could be a huge opportunity for Malta to rethink how it designs and allocates public space. Such a roll back could incorporate trees into people-friendly designs that link communities rather than divide them. Key considerations if we want to make modal choices like a metro – that people will want to walk to on shaded well-connected streets – work and rebalance our car dependence, and cue individ-uals to make a modal choice. Leafy green streets that encourage walking, cycling and bus use to reach a metro will do just that.

It’s time to redesign our streets and towns into people spaces that tap into built environment resources like mature trees and active city friendly transport modes – a holistic connectedness. With that in mind the timing of RISM directive article 6B might be just right.