In Malta getting from A to B comes with centuries of baggage and possibly a traffic jam.
For an island just 27 kilometres long and 14 kilometres wide, Malta has always had a surprisingly complicated relationship with transport. Moving people across a small patch of limestone in the middle of the Mediterranean should be simple. Yet the story of transport here is one of ambition, endless debate and improvisation with the latest chapter being the launch of the Gozo fast ferry services.
Perhaps Malta’s earliest transport network was carved directly into the limestone: the mysterious Punic cart ruts, the parallel grooves etched across the countryside. They are still visible in places like Misraħ Għar il-Kbir. Nobody knows exactly how they were used, but they are often linked to ancient carts hauling goods across the island. In a tongue-in-cheek way, they may represent Malta’s first attempt at organised transport infrastructure. Two prehistoric traffic lanes without the traffic lights and roundabouts.
Fast forward to the nineteenth century and Malta embraced rail travel. The Malta Railway opened in 1883, connecting Valletta to Mdina via a line stretching just over 11 kilometres. It was built to reduce difficult overland travel and speed up movement between the harbour and inland towns. A parallel tram system was introduced in 1905 and both provided an alternative to the traditional horse-drawn karozzini.
The tramway lasted twenty-four years, closing in 1929 and the railway lasted fifty years closing by 1931. Competition from buses and private vehicles, made both mass transit systems increasingly uneconomical. Today, fragments of railway tunnels and stations remain scattered across the island while there is nothing left of the tramways.
Since 1905, Malta’s bus network has been the backbone of public transport, becoming as iconic as the island’s architecture. The brightly coloured traditional buses, often individually decorated by their owners, became symbols of Maltese identity, before being replaced by a controversial new bus system in 2011.
Malta’s transport challenge has never gone away. Despite its small size, the islands have one of the highest vehicle densities in Europe. For an island of roughly 316 square kilometres, the sheer number of cars creates a remarkable concentration of traffic congestion and parking pressures leading to daily frustration for the population. An initiative called the Driving Licence Surrender Scheme, was introduced to ‘reward’ young people for not driving but it has failed to slow the proliferation of vehicles on the road, which has now reached 438, 567 vehicles for a population of approximately 530,000.
Perhaps because of this, Malta has spent decades discussing what comes next, with many reports and proposals announced for Metro systems, underground railways, monorails and tunnels, all grand visions that never see the light of day. Few topics generate more conversation than the long-discussed Malta–Gozo tunnel, an undersea link that has alternated between political enthusiasm and environmental hesitation. This is not unlike the proposed fast train system in Australia intended to link Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, which is periodically announced with great fanfare.
Now the sea has quietly become part of the solution, to circumvent the traffic. Fast ferry services were launched linking Valletta and Gozo, and have been recently expanded to link Sliema and Bugibba. They are beginning to reshape travel habits so commuters can avoid sitting on the roads behind a long line of red tail-lights.
Malta’s transport story has always balanced practicality and possibility. From Punic cart ruts to Victorian railways, from iconic buses to modern ferries, it is a continual searching for the perfect way to move people around a small place.
This article was published in the Malta Journal edition 598.
