The true story about roads

A headline in a Sunday newspaper last week read "The road is smooth from the Airport to Ghajn Tuffieha". The article came up with the preposterous premise that these roads were being reconstructed to give a smooth ride to the dignitaries taking part in the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), which will be held at the Golden Sands Resort at Ghajn Tuffieha in November.

Well, the story of how the Italian Protocol Road Project came into being goes a few years back. Most of these roads being reconstructed in this project were built by various Labour administrations in the 1970s and 1980s using mediocre construction methods.

Their geometry left much to be desired; their junctions were inefficient; but, most of all, their surface was irregular and full of depressions.

The road network master plan prepared in 1998 was the first to identify and give a high priority to the reconstruction of these roads. Tenders were subsequently published in June 2000 for the reconstruction of the stretch of road between the Tal-Qlejja Roundabout and St Dorothy's Convent Roundabout in Zebbug. These tenders, however, were never awarded.

In 2002, during negotiations for a new financial protocol - the fifth - the Italian government asked Malta to present a list of projects for possible funding. This protocol was the first to identify the road network as a priority area for funding.

Thus the route from Luqa to Mosta was submitted, along with the route leading from Zurrieq to Marsascala, some arterial roads in Gozo and the flood relief project for Msida. These works were estimated to cost €40 million.

In the end, €30 million were allocated for the road upgrade project. Government chose to reconstruct the route from Luqa to Mosta into a state-of-the-art arterial road corridor linking Malta International Airport with the north of the island.

This choice was also spurred by the fact that these roads would not be eligible for financing under the European Union's Cohesion Fund.

Work on the designs for these roads started later in 2002. Estimates were prepared and the tenders were drafted.

The route chosen was divided into three lots and three calls for tenders were issued in November 2003.

The offers from Italian contractors were submitted by January 2004. Work on the first phases of the project - Triq Buqana on the outskirts of Ta' Qali, and two sections of Mdina Road - started early in June 2004 after three Italian contractors and their Maltese sub contractors were awarded tenders for three separate lots of roads leading from Luqa to Mosta through Qormi and Zebbug.

A further three Italian contractors joined in November.

These were brought on board firstly because the project was extended to include the reconstruction of the Siggiewi Bypass and the road linking Tal-Qlejja to Zebbiegh. The second reason was that one of the original three contractors was finding it difficult to keep up with the schedule he had set.

Thus, part of the road works that were allocated to him were removed and re-awarded to one of these new contractors.

So, far from being a project spurred by CHOGM, the Road Upgrade Programme financed under the fifth Italo-Maltese financial protocol has been long in the making.

Hiccups during the execution of works are bound to crop up. Traffic management, for example, was a challenge. In retrospect, this aspect of planning was not as perfect as one would expect.

It definitely lacked the dynamism to take into account variations to the project management programme. The contractors also had to deal with the mysterious disappearance (read stealing) of signs and barriers, and their reappearance in the wrong places.

The unexpected also came in the form of two archaeological discoveries. Part of the Ta' Bistra Catacombs complex, which were believed to be destroyed, were found practically intact under one of the roads being reconstructed in the Targa Gap area.

This discovery actually led to a major change in the design of this road. Most of the catacombs will remain uncovered and the road will be downgraded from a main thoroughfare to a residential road.

The discovery of a section of the Victoria Lines running under the Zebbiegh bypass, though not completely unexpected, gave us the opportunity to change the design of the road and expose another substantial part of the Lines running along the road.

Midway through the project, we decided to integrate landscaping works with the ongoing road works, rather than wait for the completion of road for the landscaping of the soft areas to start.

Today, the landscaping of the recently opened Triq Buqana is fast taking shape, despite various episodes of vandalism. But most of the works done in connection with landscaping - the cisterns, pumps and irrigation system - remain hidden from view.

During the coming week we will see the laying of the wearing course (the final layer of asphalt) on most of the remaining stretches - Luqa, Siggiewi, Zebbug, Mtarfa and Mgarr.

These works will bring us to the practical period by the first week of September.

I am looking forward to the time when the negative view of our roads will start changing. Hopefully, as we maintain the rhythm - not just with other stretches or arterial roads and a comprehensive programme to complete all residential roads by 2008 - the Maltese and Gozitans will be convinced that that this investment is being carried out solely for them.

Jesmond Mugliett is Minister of Urban Development and Roads.