I read with interest the details in the local media about the Manoel Dimech Bridge rehabilitation project. Apparently, the much-needed project is planned to take 10 months of working 18-hour days to complete. We are talking about a 130-metre stretch involving the pouring of 2,400 cubic metres of concrete.

Just for fun, I did some maths and fully admit the following does not incorporate all of the intricacies involved in replacing the deck of a bridge and fixing its support columns.

Nevertheless, the fun part: assuming (unrealistically), that work

carries on for 10 months at 30 days per month, and 18 hours per day,

130 metres over 10 months works out at constructing 13 metres a month, approximately 43.3 centimetres per day, or 2.41 centimetres per hour (which is slightly less than the width of a 50 cent piece).

Living in Gzira, and seeing the 50-metre stretch of barely driveable road on the hill outside my flat take the better part of five months to be turned from a pothole-ridden obstacle course into an un-driveable, un-surfaced alternately muddy/dusty further potholed rebuilding project that appears to have been left to finish itself, I truly wonder if the Manoel Dimech Bridge team is being overly optimistic in thinking they can advance at a pace of 50 cents per hour so to speak (with tongue firmly planted in cheek).

J. Attard

Gzira