While the University’s pro-rector Carmen Sammut completely missed the point, using far too many words, defending the changing of a sports ground into a car park , albeit temporarily, a recent picture posted on the ‘Pass-Pass’ pedestrian site showing direction signs with walking times to various localities appearing on campus, demonstrating that all hope is not lost.
Especially as a great majority of students live in essentially close proximity to campus. It is these who I dare say can provide all the University parking needs if they just used the alternatives available.
There of course has been much blathering, about how inconvenient those other alternatives are, but they are there, warts-n-all, and most are that way anyway because of our addiction to the overuse of private cars.
Our pavements are pared thinly to provision parking, or buses stuck behind far too many cars that also challenge anyone cycling, and clutter our public space. The sports track might not look like much, but it looks better than a car park.
Importantly the whole debacle is a missed opportunity to capitalise on the government’s offering free transport to students. To use a push-pull, carrot and stick approach. Disincentivising car use, which will ultimately benefit other car users - yes you are stuck behind other car drivers and battle them for parking spaces. To counter this in many other European universities students are lucky to get a parking permit in their first year, let alone at all if they live within three kilometres of it - and many of our student do.
The icing on the cake is that we are told it’s only temporary. But how temporary? Is it several months, a year-and-a-half? Possibly judging by how long it is taking to finalise the pedestrian subway on the Kappara bypass, or link the laughable one-way cycle lane to the University? Both of which could have been quite useful right now.
Why wasn’t the pro-rector as strident, given the University’s hard conviction regarding sustainability, over these issues? Where are the letters in the press?
In reality given the value of parking I would be surprised if we don’t compromise the devil out of this situation, as we usually do, and it becomes a temporary-permanent fixture.
Of course we will have to go through this all again when the sports ground is finally closed, to build the new sports facility (with parking). Will the pro-rector waste as many words and be as strident in calling for a temporary running track around another car park, clearing cars out of the way, when that happens?
Or will it simply cave in on its own convictions once again. The bottom line is it was a situation, badly done.