If Malta does decide to go for a national underground metro system, entrances could be placed within large shopping malls, similar to stops abroad, Transport Minister Ian Borg said in a new interview with Lovin Malta.

However, the government may be opening itself up to criticism from business-owners if so, he continued.

When asked if the country was ready to “sacrifice” public central gardens and green areas for metro stations, Borg looked abroad.

“Other countries were able to solve this problem regarding stations, but there’s another price to be paid,” Borg said. “For example, some countries set the stations up within private buildings. How often do you travel, and the metro will drop you off within a shopping mall? You can choose to do this too.”

“It’s an option,” he continued. “But don’t you know that if (designers) ARUP did that, and placed stations in this shopping mall, or a station in that centre, an entire uproar would have arisen?”

Transport Malta was intelligent to ask ARUP to use government land only. But it’s a good question – should we be placing the metro station near the Mosta Dome, or should it be in a shopping mall in Mosta?”

“Let’s discuss it – but then don’t come to me and ask me, why this shopping mall and not this shopping mall.”

And on a more general note regards the metro, Borg said he was confident in the metro proposal: “This really is a project where for the little you lose, you gain so much.”

The recently proposed plans for a potential metro, set to cost €6.2 billion with 25 stations across the island, have led to major discussions on the island.

Borg broke down his thoughts on the metro, as well as other ongoing infrastructural works across the island, in this sit-down interview on Lovin Daily: