Labour President Proposes Banning Cars From Village Centres At Certain Hours Of The Day
Cars should be banned from village centres at certain hours of the day, Labour President Daniel Micallef has proposed.
“We have historic and beautiful streets which people only get to enjoy once a year, during the village feast,” Micallef said at the PL’s extraordinary conference yesterday. “Now we’ll have adequate infrastructure, we have to start seeing how to return these streets to the people. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel here.
There are many case studies in other countries and many tools we can utilise to limit and yes, even close off, traffic in village cores at certain times if needs be.”
Micallef said such moves are possible thanks to projects like the Central Link roadworks, which is expected to reduce traffic from the village cores of Attard, Balzan and Lija.
“Residents will be prioritised and there will be more pedestrian zones,” he said to applause. “If needs be, drivers will have to take a longer route to get to their destination so that village squares can be enjoyed by the people.”
“People who want to visit a town or village can park at the periphery and walk a few steps. This is our daily environment but it seems we’re content with prioritising vehicles over ourselves, often out of laziness.”