The Regenerative Multi-modal Transport System proposes a national infrastructure solution designed to address Malta’s road infrastructure, traffic and congestion issues by bringing the built environment and natural environment together.
Fitting within the system are The Malta Bus Reborn, which brings back the iconic Malta buses through an electric fleet, and The Elevated Tree Canopy Cycle Lanewhich directly addressed environmental threats that the Island faces due to rising temperatures and biodiversity loss caused by climate change.
With Malta’s heavy dependency on a single mode of transport – the car – it has amounted to ever-growing infrastructural, environmental and social pressure that is burdening Malta’s progress towards a fairer, cleaner and greener future. The Regenerative Multi-modal Transport System attempts to address the root causes and confront all three pressures by moving from a single-modal dependency into a multi-modal dependency that caters for five different modes of transport: the bus, the car, the bicycle, the scooter and walking. Simultaneously, through TheElevated Tree Canopy Cycle Lane, it approaches sustainable design in a way that is regenerative, going beyond reducing negative impacts and in turn creating positive ones – the most relevant response to the current state of climate emergency.
A multi-modal system ensures that all possible transportation routes are designed in equal measure, offering various options that are equally safe and efficient so that the alternatives to a car are not only just as viable, but can turn out to be even more viable. Therefore, dedicated lanes for each mode of transport across all arterial roads, have been allocated by plugging into existing infrastructure to ensure least disruption as possible. Dedicated lanes will inherently alleviate the existing congestion caused by motor vehicles that all share the same lanes, while also ensuring equal safety and efficiency for each model, further supporting the public to transition to alternative modes of transport.
One lane is dedicated to buses, using The Malta Bus Reborn electric fleet which brings Malta’s charming and colourful heritage and cultural iconography back to our streets, looking to the past for inspiration and bringing it into the present, retaining a sense of identity and belonging through strong cultural iconography while also ensure a future that is designed for today’s biggest crisis, climate change.
Another lane is dedicated to bicycles and scooters, through The Elevated Tree Canopy Cycle Lane, offering cyclists, scooters and pedestrians a safe and swift passageway on arterial roads. This is a bolt-on prefabricated solution which is minimally invasive and disruptive, taking up existing unused centre-strip space and air space. The elevated lane is regenerative by design through its inbuilt solar technology which harvests clean energy, its hooded wings that harvests rainwater and its landscaped foundations that actively nurtures biodiversity. This project is currently kickstarting a partnership with The Research, Innovation and Development Trust (RIDT) of the University of Malta (UoM), in which the design will be deeply studied further with three faculties: The Institute for Climate Change and Sustainable Development, Department of Artificial Intelligence and the Department of Construction and Property Management.
