Traffic studies MEP Daniel Attard missed

A June 2023 MISCO survey concluded that the traffic situation is one of the top concerns in the country – a study newly-elected MEP Daniel Attard must have missed.

The survey on public concerns noted that 87% of respondents expressed concern about traffic. The study complements dozens of others held in recent years, including the National Statistics Office, several University departments, MCAST, and the European Commission.

Yet, in a recent interview, Attard said he wanted to see a study about whether traffic was a problem. He stands on the shoulders of giants such as Audrey Testaferrata de Noto, who said in 2014 that “traffic is a perception”.

In 2022, a European Commission country report on Malta pointed out that traffic cost the country €400 million annually. Congestion, noise and air pollution from traffic, the so-called external costs of transport, amounted to 3.6% of the island’s gross domestic product (GDP).

The Commission also warned the figures were on the rise. That was 2022, when some 33 new vehicles a day, or 23,016, were licensed, as confirmed in a report by the National Statistics Office (NSO) published earlier this year.

The figures being reported now refer to 65 cars being registered a day. The data is presented in a study on the social, political, and economic barriers to the adoption of a mass rapid transit system in Malta conducted between 2019 and 2023 with Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh).

Reporting the study’s findings, the deputy director of the Institute for Business Management and Commerce at MCAST, Karl Camilleri, said in May: “Malta has seen an unprecedented population growth in the last 10 years. With a population of over 520,000, according to the NSO, and with over 260,000 licensed drivers and more than 420,000 vehicles on the road network, it is the fifth-most-densely-populated country with the fifth-most-dense transportation network.”

The findings build on studies held by different departments at the University, all of which conclude that traffic is a major problem in Malta and alternative solutions are required.

Yet MEP Daniel Attard wants to see a study.

Attard may have missed them as he jumped through hoops to earn a living. When Attard was Mtarfa Mayor in 2021, he also took the position of Malta’s Deputy High Commissioner to the UK despite having no diplomatic experience.

He was ‘running’ the local council from London, refusing to resign from his post as mayor. His wife, Annalise Attard, also joined him in London while remaining on the public payroll as a director at the Malta Medicines Authority.

Attard has been so busy that he may have missed the hours citizens spend sitting in traffic daily.

The traffic problem continues to result from a lack of political will to make the right choices.

In the last Budget, the idea of a metro was put on the back burner, “fuelling the belief that the original proposal was simply a pre-election gimmick rather than a real commitment to a reduction of car use in Malta,” Camilleri said.

The NSO’s latest report noted a sharp rise in traffic accidents and fatalities, mainly due to an increase in the number of vehicles commuting on Malta’s small and congested road network.

The government’s failure to address the problem has a cost – lives lost in traffic accidents, illness from pollution-related issues, and a reduction in citizens’ quality of life. Malta does not need another study. What it needs is political will.