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‘Rewind To 1984’: Żebbuġ Councillor Reminds Us That, Environmentally, We’ve All Been Here Before

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Road-widening, tree-chopping and bottlenecks – these are some of Malta’s favourite things, apparently.

If you thought that the current battle between environmentalists and road development was a new phenomenon, this post by Żebbuġ councillor and leading bicycle advocate Steve Zammit Lupi will remind you of some of Malta’s earlier days, and battles.

“Rewind to 1984 and 1992, when former governments were already building flyovers, and tunnels with the promise to erase bottlenecks and shift vehicular traffic away from town centres,” Zammit Lupi said.

“Read these newspaper articles, in case you forgot or were not born yet (like myself). The outcomes didn’t really go as planned, did they? A quick visit to Santa Venera, Ħamrun, Msida, Pieta or St.Paul’s Bay today will provide a better (alarming) insight,” he continued.

Along with his post, he shared a number of newspaper headlines from the past that could have been published in 2019.

“The political mantra in 2019 carries on much unchanged. We insist to widen our trousers, again”

Zammit Lupi, who has regularly called out what he sees as short-sighted fixes for long term problems, lamented that history seemed doomed to repeat itself.

“The lack of political will to challenge the status quo and a heavy dose of sponsored propaganda tries to convince us that the same fixes, repeated today will bear different results tomorrow,” Zammit Lupi said.

“Induced demand and history have shown us otherwise.”

Is Malta doomed to repeat its environmental battles forever?

READ NEXT: IN PHOTOS: The Best, Weirdest And Most Wonderful Placards From Yesterday’s For Our Trees’ Protest

Johnathan is an award-winning Maltese journalist interested in social justice, politics, minority issues, music and food. Follow him at @supreofficialmt on Instagram, and send him news, food and music stories at [email protected]

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