You’ve got to laugh sometimes. Like, for instance, last Thursday, when newly invested “King of the Roads” Austin Gatt claimed that it was “high time” Malta considered alternative methods of public transport to the traditional bus and taxi regime.
“It is hardly rocket science” (Gatt went on to say) “to work out that as people travel more often, for longer and between an ever-growing list of points of origin and destination, the entire transport network – private and public – must adapt with it.”

Rocket science? High time we got a decent public transport service? You don’t say. But while we’re on the subject of government ministers who are evidently high on power most of the time: I have a tiny, weeny question for GonziPN’s resident rocket scientist. Who, exactly, has been in total control of this country for the past 20 years – to be precise, from May 1987 to May 2008, minus the 22 months between October 1996 and September 1998 – if not the selfsame government of which Austin Gatt himself is now a senior minister?
Yes, indeed. If a week is a long time in politics, 20 years is an entire geological age. To put it into perspective: in the two decades between 1900 and 1920, Malta’s public transport services were expanded from a system of horse-drawn carriages and a steam train from Mdina to Valletta, to the Omnibus, the ferries, the electric tramway, the Barrakka lift… don’t know about you, but I call that exponential growth. And guess what? We didn’t even have our own government until 1921.

Compare this to the 20 years between 1987 and 2007, 99.9% of which unfolded under successive Nationalist administrations of government – Austin Gatt featuring prominently in every single one – and… my, what a lot has changed.
Let’s start with the buses. In 1987, they were green. Today, they are orange. Other than that, they’re still the same old, pre-war Bedford buses, with the same Elvis stickers, the same 1:1 gradient ascent to get on board; and those same, hugely reassuring “Mother of God Pray Of Us” makeshift niches behind every driver’s seat.
But at least, they got a single lick of paint in 20 whole years. And high time, too.

Personally, however, I liked them better when they were green: and not just of out of political bias, either.
Back then, you see, Malta’s green buses used to come complete with these obscure things called “bus conductors”. It worked like this: you board the bus, you take your seat, and then the conductor shuffles along and sells you a ticket. (Later, the same conductor would come again and tear your ticket in two. I have to confess I never quite understood the logic there… but then again, rocket science was never my forte.)
Anyhow, today’s buses no longer have conductors. Instead they have electronic bus ticketing machines. This has been a huge improvement… to the extent of the delay at every bus stop, and consequently, to the duration to the entire trip.

This is yet another aspect of our public transport system that does not quite qualify as “rocket science”. The rationale behind the presence of a bus conductor was simple: to spare the bus driver all the hassle of handling money and giving out change. This in turn enabled the driver to concentrate on the truly important things in life: like lighting his cigarette, or feeding his pet greenfinch in its tiny cage under the gear-stick… or at a stretch, actually driving the bus.
Now, of course, things have improved enormously. Today, after 20 years of assiduous Nationalist improvements to the system, the passenger steps on board, presses a small red button on the electronic bus-ticketing machine… and then pays the bus driver for the ticket, and waits for the same driver to fish through a mountain of shiny euro centime coins for the correct change.
Effectively, then, it is the exact same system as it was before the introduction of the electronic ticketing machine… only without the bus conductor. This way, all the advantages of the previous system were lost, but the same old flaws were retained… and a few new ones were invented in the process (for let’s face it: bus conductors may not have been perfect, but they rarely needed their internal microchips replaced.)

And that’s just the buses. Over to taxis now, and… oh look! The service has changed beyond recognition. Admittedly, Maltese taxis still come in two distinct varieties – white and expensive, or black and slightly cheaper – but instead of ripping you off in Maltese liri, their drivers now rip you off in euros. Talk about the advantages of full EU membership…
As for “taxi-meters”, these obscure technological innovations now occupy the same plane of existence as the nuclear thermal liquid hydrogen bivalve injector common to most modern-day rocket propellant systems: i.e., they never quite made it to Malta. Nor did the custom of waving down a taxi in the street… Malta being the only country in the world where passengers have to transport themselves to the taxi, and not the other way round.
And yes, it’s true… the service was indeed at one point “liberalised”. This is another fine example of newfangled Euro-mumbo jumbo, which means that – as per the Free Competition directive – anyone is now at liberty to set up and operate his very own taxi service… so long as he is willing to cough up the measly sum of around € 50,000 to obtain an operating licence from the ADT (which by the way, has also changed beyond recognition. It used to be the “MTA”).

What about the rest of Malta’s public transport service, you may well ask? The water taxis? The Barrakka lift? The cable car from Valletta to Senglea? The underground railway? The improbability factor drive? The Hot Air Balloon from one side of parliament to the other?
Sorry, folks, but after 20 years of the Nationalists in power, none of these innovations has ever seen the light of day. And you know what? I reckon it’s high time someone hired a rocket scientist to explain to certain government ministers the precise meaning of the word “cheek”.