Marking the road show

Some of the roads being re-laid are nearing completion. Stretches have been opened. Contractors have clearly been told to up the tempo. Government spokesmen, in particular the minister responsible for roads, have increased their own rate of drumming out the good news. One should not begrudge them a degree of satisfaction. They have been getting a lot of stick for doing what needs to be done and should have started much earlier.

The country needs decent roads. Not just patching up its "two million potholes", as an expatriate critic once put it. But getting value for the several millions of Maltese liri spent annually. Value from road repairs is still nowhere in sight. But the relaying of roads - some to such an extent that they are being called new - seems to be going on far more professionally than in most cases in the past.

As some are completed one basic flaw in the ongoing project becomes more evident. It lies in the lack of planning and coordination of the execution of the project. Conception - combining relaying of services with the projected reconstruction - looks sound. Whether it is sound enough will only be known over the years. Already, there are disturbing signs of pulling up today what was only finished yesterday, and with some delay at that.

Overall, though, the conception goes deeper than hitherto - as does the relaying of services and the "new" roads that pass over them. Implementation, though, has ranged from unsatisfactory to atrocious. Unsatisfactory, in terms of the rate at which some of the contractors were working, leading to the roads minister to plead impotence in regard to his accountability in respect of frustrating delays.

Atrocious, concerning the incoherent planning of the work, such that completion does not mesh, and in the way diversion of traffic has been made more disruptive than it inevitably had to be.

The broad Zebbug area remains one prime example. Government spokesmen have blared the fact that Ta' Srina, passing outside Zebbug towards the Zebbug-Rabat roundabout, has been completed and opened to traffic. The job appears to have been well executed. But at both ends of the long road - at the Zebbug-Attard and the Zebbug-Rabat roundabouts - work is far from finished.

Though these are two areas where the tempo has risen, there remains a lot to be done. Meanwhile, it is hazardous to get into or out of Ta' Srina. At least, things are moving faster. Cynics relate the revised time scaling to the approaching Commonwealth Government Heads of State Meeting.

Others add that concentration on the main arteries is not paralleled with action regarding adjoining streets and their meandering into our towns and villages.

I would recall another shortcoming, pointed out often enough but ignored by the spending authorities with studied indifference. The road markings on the re-laid arteries are already fading away. That is the old, old story of an embedded inability to do that simple job properly. It is not only, if it is at all, a matter of the paint that is used. The waste of paint and time to apply stems from the fact that, to last, road markings should be baked on.

One would have expected that would be done in the re-laid roads, at least, taking the technique on to other roads in due course. Impotency prevails in that area too. The new (to Malta) techniques of how to build roads also leaves another gap. One more minor, but a totally avoidable blemish. Manholes and their covers are still much too often below the level of the new roads.

If very visible details like road markings and inspection-hole covers are ignored, one may be led to wonder to what extent supervision is taking place to ensure all that is not visible is of the right quality.

Much remains to be done. In addition to claiming credit for what has been done, the government should use the experience to see to it that there are is more improvement.

Smug satisfaction does not make lasting marking on the road towards fulfilment.