ONE STEP FORWARD BUT TWO STEPS BACK – Malta Public Transport?
Yes, it’s a headache running a public transport bus system in Malta, in 2018, a great headache. Commuters moan all the time, it’s difficult to find drivers, difficult to keep the price competitive and at a guess, I would say not enough buses - all these, besides general traffic chaos and congestion, rendering any sort of timing virtually impossible.
However, there is one thing I can’t stand, and that is administrative officials stuck in offices issuing deceptive statements about how well things are going, how everything is running smoothly and how the public are satisfied – when I fact, they are not and in even further fact, not at all.
Yesterday, Monday, 10th April, I returned to using public transport for the first time this year after a prolonged bout of ‘flu that lasted from before Christmas to the end of March.
This was my travel log.
I was at the Qawra Terminal at 06.55 hoping to catch Route Bus 45 to Valletta just after 07.00. Of course, it did not materialise (No 45 buses rarely do!). Instead, I took a 48.
It left the terminal at 07.15 and I arrived in Floriana at 08.45 – that is a solid 90 minutes of fretting and fuming to cross a few kilometres. Inevitable sticking points are exiting from Bugibba, Burmarrad, Mosta, the whole of Birkirkara and then of course most of Valley Road and Msida.
My meeting in Floriana lasted from 09.00 to 10.30 – that is 90 minutes.
After a lengthy walk to the Valletta Terminal, I arrived to catch the 11.00 Route 45 Bus to outer Qawra (that is via the Aquarium). It did not materialise – naturally, it never does because this is surely the worst route of all in the public transport system.
A group of frustrated people standing around sighed, huffed and puffed and these are some of the random comments I overheard:
“The only sure thing about public transport is that there is no way you can manage in this country unless you use your own private car”.
“It’s disgraceful”.
“I left my car at home because it’s impossible to park in or around Valletta, but just look at all the time I have wasted”.
“I cannot do otherwise but use buses because I don’t drive so I can only rely on them.”
The clock had now reached 11.30 when there should have been another 45 bus. It did not materialise either!
No explanations, no reasons given because apparently, the public are just a herd of goats and they can either like it or lump it. So-called ‘Dispatchers’ stand around doing nothing but jotting things in little notebooks and when you enquire about anything, they just shrug their shoulders and ignore you.
Finally I had to take a 48 and ended up with a lengthy walk to outer Qawra on the east because the 48 goes in via the west. The journey took 60 minutes and then a 15-minute walk, that is 75 minutes in all.
Therefore, to attend a 90 minute meeting it took me 165 minutes of travel, that is, 2.75 hours – virtually the time of a flight from Malta to Paris!
The electronic sign notations are useless and meaningless; checking route table times – a complete waste of time.
My conclusion is that comparing the First Quarter of this year to the Fourth Quarter last year, the situation is status quo – or rather, one step forward but two steps back.
ALBERT JEROME FENECH
