Editorial | A welcome investment in road infrastructure

Works on the Central Link project can get underway after the courts yesterday rejected an appeal filed by concerned residents and environmental groups.

Transport Minister Ian Borg welcomed the decision, insisting it “fills us with courage to continue investing in infrastructure”.

Like the government, business too breathed a sigh of relief at the news. For the weak transport and infrastructure network is repeatedly at the top of local businesses’ concerns.

Be it service-oriented or a goods provider, every business depends on the transport network functioning at an optimum level, even if just for the sake of staff making it to the workplace on time.

Of course, for good merchants, it is much more of a problem, relying on timely delivery of stock and merchandise.

Government has over the past few years embarked on an ambitious road network overhaul. New roads are being planned, major junctions are being redesigned to eliminate roundabouts and traffic lights, and roads are being widened.

More bottlenecks have to straightened out to ensure a smooth-running, uniform road network throughout Malta. The same should hold for Gozo, where a significant investment is required in the road infrastructure after years of abandonment.

The overhaul is more than welcome. It has been decades since Malta last saw such a massive investment in road network improvements.

The last big changes that occurred happened in the 1990s when the Santa Venera tunnels, the Regional Road tunnels below the skate park, and the Mrieħel bypass were built. And even here, the level of investment and the extent of it pale into insignificance when compared to the current situation.

The current infrastructural works will make travelling safer, faster and help reduce congestion. But alone they will not be enough.

The number of cars being added to the road network is impressive. Malta added 73 vehicles per day to its road network between July and September, figures released by the National Statistics Office last month have shown.

At this rate, congestion is likely to return to key areas unless other measures are adopted to encourage people to abandon their private cars. One measure that could help delay the problem is raising the driving age to 21, which can also prompt a generational change in attitude towards the car.

This is not to say that the investment in the road infrastructure is not needed. Even if car importation were to hypothetically stop immediately, the road network still needs the current level of investment to be upgraded and have bottlenecks eliminated once and for all. Doing nothing to improve the network is not an option.

But forward planning is required to start thinking of developing a mass transport system that can operate both above ground and underground.

In this way, the public transport system can connect to a mass transport system, giving people different options to travel around the island.

There are examples of small underground systems operating in cities abroad of comparable size to Malta, which can serve as blueprints.

The same fervour that underpins the current infrastructure spending should be injected into a comprehensive plan to have a workable underground system up and running in the next 15 years.