A new bypass which is set to cost around €8 million will be built to connect Zabbar with Smart City in Kalkara, with works slated to start in a month’s time.

In a briefing on Tuesday morning, Transport Malta architect Antoinette Conti told journalists that the project would aim to divert vehicular traffic away from the residential zones in the Cottonera area and also create a project that would incorporate areas for alternate means of transport.

The project will take up 3,000 square metres of agricultural land – but Conti pointed out that this is considerably less than the 14,500 square metres that a four-lane proposal for the area from 2007 would have taken up.

While the 2007 proposal cut straight through agricultural land to create a four-lane bypass, this proposal seeks instead to upgrade existing roads in the Kalkara area and connect them with an existing concrete rural road and through a field which runs underneath the St James and St Louis bastion walls in Zabbar – which will both be converted into a fully-fledged road – right up to Notre Dame Gate.

The final project will be a two-lane road – one lane up, one lane down – rather than a four-lane proposal which was initially mooted in 2007, but the 1.6km stretch will also include fully segregated pedestrian and cycle lanes.

“We want the design to complement the area,” Conti said, as she explained that the project was design in such a manner that it would preserve the bastion walls and features as much as possible: the cycle and pedestrian areas are in fact situated in the fort glacis and other ditch areas so they can be kept intact.

Around 30 trees and shrubs will be removed as part of the project, but Conti said that some 40 new indigenous species will be planted in their stead.

Architect Walter Portelli, Head of the Key Projects Section within Infrastructure Malta, said that the project would be carried out in phases, with the first one starting as early as the end of next month.

This first phase will impact Triq il-Missjoni Taljana and Triq Santa Liberata in Kalkara and Birgu respectively, while the second phase – which will start in around July – will see works on Triq Joseph Calleia and Triq il-Kanun tal-Mija, both in Kalkara.

These interventions will not require a planning permit, Portelli said, as they are within the existing footprints of the current roads.

Planning permits will be required for the works which will join the area around the Notre Dame Gate to Kalkara at Triq Santa Liberata, he said.

Conti explained that this area around Notre Dame Gate will see the most intervention.

Currently, there is a concrete rural road which ends around 120 metres away from Triq Santa Liberata.  The concrete road will be upgraded significantly for this project, while Conti said that the expropriation process for the fields between where the concrete road currently ends and Triq Santa Liberata is currently ongoing.

Portelli said that the project is expected to take between three and four years to complete, and will cost around €8 million.