Roads in Malta have always been the focus of everyone’s attention and have often been a controversial subject. It was not long ago when many roads, including main arteries, were in a disastrous state and some resembled the surface of the moon.
However, in recent years, a good number of roads in Malta and Gozo have been given a well-deserved and much needed facelift and are finally being brought up to European standards. Residential roads in many localities are also being seen to, some by the central government and some by local councils.
The financial aid Malta received from the Fifth Italian Protocol was certainly a blessing for the country. Thanks to these funds, Malta started taking the upgrading of its road network more seriously. Money from the European Union is also forthcoming in this regard.
In 2001 the roads ministry commissioned a Transport Infrastructure Needs Assessment, which revealed the need for 96 kilometres of roads to be upgraded. This required an investment of a staggering E233.6 million. It is only understandable that all these roads cannot be done all at once and that work needs to be spread out over a number of years, first in order to plan alternative routes while work is under way and secondly to see how the projects can be financed.
The creation of SmartCity will no doubt enhance Malta’s stature in the ICT world and it will also give a boost to the economy with the employment of more than 5,600 people. But building such a project means that a new road network needs to be designed and implemented to link the Ricasoli area to the rest of Malta
In an interview with this newspaper carried last Monday, the new director of the Malta Transport Authority’s Network Infrastructure Directorate Paul Buhagiar revealed that the authority was planning to build roads to service this “city” as well as to upgrade a number of roads around it.
The plans are currently being drawn up after the authority conducted a number of studies to determine the estimated traffic volumes that the project will bring about. The expected traffic counts will determine how the road network has to be designed.
The first part of the multi-phased project that has to be done is the road between Bieb is-Sultan and Kalkara. The directorate is planning to leave this road without a wearing course (the final layer of asphalt) so it would not be damaged by the trucks travelling to and from the SmartCity area until it is fully developed. The ADT is also planning to upgrade several roads to link the SmartCity project to Tal-Barrani Road.
Planning and designing a new road, or a project to upgrade or rebuild a road from scratch is undeniably a painstaking job. Sometimes, this would need to be accompanied by plans for alternative routes. A clear example is the Manwel Dimech bridge, which entailed a thorough shake-up of the traffic system – with good planning, the negative effects on traffic management have been minimal.
Planning roadwork also involves a long and complicated process before a tender document is issued for contractors to submit their tenders in order to be assigned the job. The process starts with traffic counts and with on-site surveillance to determine not only how many cars and trucks are driven through a particular road but also the weight of these vehicles.
Moreover, the planning stage must take into consideration the services that pass underneath the road, and it is not always easy to locate them beforehand. This sometimes has led to “delays”, which are ultimately justified.
Planning the building of a new road or maintaining existing ones is not an easy job as some would imagine. Mishaps have happened over these years and some jobs have not turned out to be perfect, but it must be said that generally speaking the efforts being made to upgrade the road network and improve residential roads is to be commended.