Are you dreading tomorrow? Are you setting your alarm to 4am, so you leave the house by 4.30am and you’re at your desk by 5am? Have you been studying Google maps and Google Earth trying to see if there are any hidden unknown lanes that you can use to avoid the traffic mayhem?
If you haven’t, then best get your head round to it, because as of tomorrow, it’s the rentrée. Children go back to school and we go back to biting steering wheels. Not that we had a break this summer really – which is why it’s so worrying this time round. If streets were chaotic in July and August when everyone is meant to be off the streets, how will October be?
Eurostat keeps churning out figures that give me palpitations. Last week we learnt that Malta – the tiniest European Union member State – has the biggest number of public route transport vehicles in relation to its population. We have the greatest number of minibuses, buses, mini-coaches and coaches out on the streets.
In other countries, this would be good news, because it would mean fewer cars on the road. But here in Malta we are an anomaly. Not only do we top the public-vehicles-on-the-road list, we also have the third-highest number of passenger cars on the island. Fantastic: we get a gold and a bronze medal.
Plus, almost all the other countries taking part in the study have other alternative transport services such as rail and metro, and efficient ferry services, which we don’t have.
Where does this leave us? It leaves us tearing out our hair. If an alien from outer space had to, by chance, focus his telescope on our micro island, he would blink his eye/s and shake his triangular head. “Who are these creatures always standing in a line in their metal houses on wheels? Why do they get out of the car, slam the door, walk a bit, crane their necks, and then get in again, shaking their heads? Why is it that when they open their mouths, it’s not that tingly joyful human sound that comes out, but a harsh sound similar to barking?”
I was reading an online study report about how congestion doesn’t just making us late. “It’s harming your health, making you more prone to violence, fracturing your social relationships and sapping our very soul.”
Ouch. That’s a bit much, I thought. But then the next day I was stuck in Marsa for an hour. The congestion was such that even with my bike I could not get through. I arrived home two hours later, shaking with traffic anxiety. I wrenched the helmet off my head and stalked the house searching for someone to vent on, and feeling every inch The Incredible Hulk when he’s turned green. Even the dog stopped wagging her tail half way, and slinked away to the next room, flattening herself as much as possible and pretending to be a carpet.
Tomorrow children go back to school and we go back to biting steering wheels
According to David Wiesenthal, a psychology professor at York University whose mission is to study stress in drivers, you and I needn’t worry for these strong reactions to traffic jams because “they have tangible physiological and psychological effects on the people stuck in them... You feel out of control, you don’t have options,” he wrote in his report. Yes! Exactly!
As your car slows to a crawl, your heart rate picks up, your breathing intensifies and your blood pressure shoots up; in short, it’s the perfect simmering for road rage eruption.
What can we do? Some experts suggest turning your car to a mini gym, you know, the roll-your-shoulders-push-your-head-into-your-headrest-and-flex-those-glutes kind of thing to stimulate nerves and blood flow to your muscles. Others suggest leaving the car behind and walk or bike it to work because it is significantly less stressful.
But we can’t do that, can we? Let’s say you’re happily cycling on that bright new green cycle lane on the university bypass and then you get to the roundabout and the cycle lane is no more. Nada. Finita. You have to pick up your bike throw it over your shoulders and... walk across one of Malta’s most dangerous hot spots. Or just wait there until the road architects realise that with cycle lanes it’s all about joining the dots. But that may take years.
So, what’s the solution? We urgently and desperately need proper alternative transport infrastructure so that the next time the alien from outer space checks in on us, he’ll see streets void of the metal boxes on wheels, and children will be arriving to school for their rentrée on rails, metro, bicycles and boats. And the rest of us happily skipping away for the rest of the day.
• Aliens in outer space will soon be spotting another weird, monstrous, err, thingy sprouting up from the grounds of Malta. It’ll be that 38-storey tower and 17-storey hotel replacing what is the (listed) building of the Institute of Tourism Studies in Pembroke.
It was approved despite unprecedented opposition from local councils, residents and environmental groups, and despite the fact that the Planning Authority chairman himself voted against it. It was approved because the owners of the project seem to specialise in buying and bullying people.
It is yet another symptom of the rot infesting the island. Ugliness begets ugliness. We will now have an ugly, crass monument in the shape of these towers to remind us daily of the state of our nation’s soul.
krischetcuti@gmail.com
Twitter: @krischetcuti