Following several serious traffic accidents on Tower Road, The Strand and Tignè, the time has come to tame Sliema’s and many other villages’ and towns’ roads.

While in other EU states traffic slows to a survivable 30kph on entering a residential or commercial area where pedestrians are expected, in Malta we do the opposite and the safety, efficiency and comfort of vulnerable road users has hit an all-time low.

Strangely, while sharrows were not acceptable for Tower Road, they seem so for the Żebbuġ bypass, skipping the non-mandatory cycle lane step. This is not just a downgrade, it’s two steps backwards.

Although sharrows are cheap, painting them on a faster bypass clearly does not make it a ‘cyclist priority lane’, especially as sharrows have long been criticised as a last ditch, essentially cooperative methodology, only working if drivers are nice enough. Clearly, other protection measures, such as a 1.5-metre passing distance and presumed liability laws – basically an extension of the front-to-rear rule (that would interestingly also protect pedestrians from cyclists) –  must be enacted.

This might be important as we are seeing what appear to be more  shared pedestrian-cycle paths, as car lanes gobble up space. Often one-sided, entrances tend to flow against traffic at some point, such as roundabout exits, typically ignore buffer minimums and are far too narrow for combined two-way bicycle and pedestrian traffic. Disliked as terribly inefficient walking speed restricted affairs, disconnected, they often switch sides via pelican crossings, ceding main road priority to side roads. Like all bad infra, this just prompts road users to do the wrong, rather than the right thing, which is bad for everybody. That’s real equity.

Unfortunately, no amount of pixie dust goodwill will upgrade downgraded infra or mitigate prioritising traffic flow over public safety. The ink and, unfortunately, the blood may have dried but we need to get this right before the tarmac does.