Works to resurface Triq il-Htajriet in Mosta started late last year and it looks like the road has been divided in three sections. The first section was finished quite soon, even complete with tarmac. Today, over four months later, it looks like completion of these works on the rest of the road is very far off. Most of the residents in the middle part of this road have been living in misery for months as the sides of the road have been dug up in a way that whenever it rains, a large amount of rainwater fills up these gaps and sometimes it takes days before this water dries out.

The amount of water is such that one cannot park a car there without dipping his/her feet into ankle high mud to get in or out of the vehicle. This is when it rains for just one day, so one can only imagine the state of the road lately when it has rained for days on end. On the other hand, when the weather is nice and sunny, all the mud dries up, turning into unbelievable amounts of dust and if it happens to be a windy day, one might be inclined to think it the Sahara Desert. If one dares to park the car on this stretch of road even for just a few hours, it will end up looking like it has been used in some kind of driving adventure in a ditch!

In spite of all this, a lot of the residents have been thanking heaven that works have actually started after years of waiting and so have been putting up with this situation in the hope that the middle part of the road would soon be completed with tarmac like they did in the first section. We thought that only then would works move on to the third area.

However, for the past two weeks or so, nothing more has been done in the central area and the workers have continued on to the third section. Does this mean that the residents of the middle part of the road are going to have to wait, probably months, until the third area is ready for resurfacing as well?

This is very worrying, as apart from being a resident of this road, I am also pregnant and every day I feel I am at risk of tripping on the rocks that are scattered around everywhere or of slipping on one of the muddy metal panels that have been laid here and there in the middle of the road to cover the larger holes. I am sure that another couple of pregnant women, couples with small children and also the elderly who live in the same area would agree that walking in our road or even trying to cross the road has become very dangerous.

To add insult to injury, the pavement that has been done on one side of the road is more than 10 feet wide. Was there need, one asks, for such a wide pavement when it would have been much more practical to create a narrower one and thus be able to have space where cars could be parked next to each other rather than in a line? This would have allowed for a few more parking spaces in a road where residents are sometimes forced to park corners away from their houses. Or at least, if the pavement had to be so wide for other reasons which I am not able to understand, couldn’t spaces have been left for trees to be planted in them to fill up this wide empty pavement and make it look a little nicer?

I totally understand that embellishing projects take time to be completed, especially in such a long and wide road like Triq il-Htajriet, but could the authorities please make sure that while the work is being carried out, the residents can at least exit and enter their homes safely?

Cynthia Genovese

Mosta