The Central Link project approved by the Planning Board last Thursday is a 6 lane bypass that extends from Mriehel and re-routes into a 4 lane bypass to Mdina through Attard. The major project is being hailed by those pushing for it as the solution to traffic congestion in the central area. The residents being lumped with its consequences, on the other hand, refer to it as a cancer factory.
The extent of the new bypass within Attard will isolate 1,200 residents from the urban centre as they are now land locked by 2 arterial roads, with 2 lanes of vehicles travelling at high speeds along the full extent of both the northern and southern flanks of a residential area. The long term impact of this on residents are; increased air and noise pollution and a decreased quality of life as their home and surroundings have converged into a central strip.
The people behind the project have justified it as falling within the local plans of 2006, insisting that what they proposed is actually an improvement from the 2006 plan since they supposedly reduced the amount of take-up of agricultural land compared with that which they could have used. This is partly true, since they did in fact not use up all the land reserved for road works within the Attard boundary, however what they fail to mention is that the local plan did not envisage the widening of the road from Attard to Mriehel into a 6 lane carriageway, nor did it envisage the widening of the road from Attard to Rabat into a 4 lane carriage way, which of course led to the take-up of more good agricultural land that was never designated for development.
In all, this colossal road-widening project will see the obliteration of 48,466sq.m of good quality agricultural land, impacting the livelihood of 47 farmers. The remaining agricultural land will now be directly adjacent to a 4 to 6 lane bypass with on-going traffic emitting fumes and polluting the soil that will eventually be yielding the crops that end up on our plates. All the mature trees that once formed a buffer along theses streets will now be replaced with saplings holding on to their poor lives, until they too will face the chop in ten to twenty years’ time, by which point the widened roads will once again be clogged up with the growing number of vehicles that this type of car-centric infrastructure encourages.
The minister behind the project, Ian Borg,keeps insisting that the trees of Saqqajja will not be amongst those facing the chop,in an attempt to ease public outcry - yes, the trees along Triq l-Imdina within the boundary of Mdina and Rabat will not face the chop, but the majestic pine trees along that same road forming part of the same picturesque rural landscape lining the street from the Zebbug/Mosta roundabout all the way to Attard’s urban centre, will. In all, 549 trees will be cut down despite 272 of them being protected under the Trees and Woodland Regulations, and some of them protected to a further extentsince they fall withina listed Area of High Landscape Value.
The 2006 Local Plan did suggest the possibility of a new road link to divert cars away from the centre of Attard, but what was proposed by Infrastructure Malta, and approved by the PA Board, is not that. The local plan did not promote the inclusion of a highway in the centre of Attard but instead envisaged a bi-directional bypass on the outskirts of Attard pushing all traffic outside of the urban core. This would have resulted in less road space being dedicated to fast travelling cars, and safer streets for residents as traffic is pushed out of the densely populated centre.The local plan furthermore envisaged measures to improve public transport through the introduction of better facilities for bus passengers and prioritization of bus movement at junctions.
What was approved instead is a reduction in the number of bus stops from 18 to 11, making it harder for commuters dependent on public transport, a situation further aggravated by the reduction in pelican crossings from 14 to 9, despite the road increasing in length, meaning pedestrians are now forced to walk longer distances along wider roads serving faster moving traffic to try get across safely.
Cyclists’ safety will also be jeopardized as the 3.6km cycling network provided is broken at several points by dangerous junctions where the flow of vehicles is again prioritized over the safety of those using alternative modes of transport. The people helping curb traffic congestion and its adverse impacts on our health and environment, by not contributing to it, are the ones being punished and cast aside through yet another major project that persists on the same car-centric infrastructure that has crippled our island.