The traffic jams on our roads, especially in the morning, have become ludicrous. It is the bane of every driver, passenger or public transport user. You simply cannot get to work without having to sit in your car or on the bus and crawl along for kilometre after kilometre and eventually get there.

The bottlenecks are increasing everywhere. The explanation is quite simple. Everyone reasons that to get to their destination, they need to leave home earlier. Automatically, a glut of traffic is created. While on the road, some realise that the main roads and intersections will be gridlocked, so they seek to use alternative routes through villages and back roads. But that siphoning off, in turn, creates more gridlock. Even as motorists seek to use other routes, the jams on the main roads remain, and others are created at village intersections. It is infuriating. Artery junctions are just terrible. Some of the main ones include the Marsa cross roads, Qormi roundabout, Floriana, Regional Road’s various bottlenecks, and Żebbuġ, amongst others.

Roundabouts just clog the system. It is literally a case of who dares wins, and even when traffic police are on duty to direct motorists, it is still mayhem. Tempers fray as motorists become more and more impatient at the pressing time and the manoeuvres of others to just get one car ahead. While they do slow people down when the roads are clear, it is quite evident that they are the main cause of gridlock.

Last week, we published a leading article suggesting a possible solution. We called it the ‘Brussels example’. Malta’s road planners have been talking about flyovers for the past 15 years at least – yet they have never materialised. People have complained at planning stage and somehow, they never actually come to fruition.

So, we reiterate – why do we not just dip one road under another? It works seamlessly in Brussels, a very cramped and condensed city. If we are so worried about people’s privacy being invaded, then just dig underground – it really is quite simple.

Put in a nutshell, planners start dipping an underpass a few hundred metres prior to the intersection. The approach is smooth and gradual and as soon as angles permit, the road then comes back to the surface. They are shorter than overpasses and traffic literally breezes through them. Of course, they would be roofed over and that would allow for traffic going in the other direction to simply drive on. There is the issue of flooding – but surely in 2012, there must be some way around it.

Traffic is eating into people’s lives. It is costing us more and more time away from our families and recreational time. We are being told to slow down before we drive ourselves into an early grave, but then we have to sit and fume in traffic for as much as twice a day, for up to an hour each time. Something has got to give – it’s just gone too far now. Forget minimum wages and crises for a second – just do something about it.