Gatt says overpass not solution for bypass safety

Transport Minister Austin Gatt said today that rather than building an overpass across Mriehel Bypass, what was needed to improve access to Qormi for residents of Tal-Blat housing estate was to improve the area of Mill Street. Speaking in Parliament in...

Speaking in Parliament in a debate on a motion by Labour MP Marie-Louise Coleiro, Dr Gatt said none of the MPs were traffic experts and the worst thing they could do was to impose solutions.

He, therefore, would not order Transport Malta to adopt one solution or another and would leave that up to the experts. He would, however, insist that a final decision should be taken.

It was a fact, he said, that Tal-Blat housing estate was isolated, but it was isolated even before the Mriehel Bypass was built and not as a consequence of it. What the road had done was that it had divided the fields which people used to walk from Tal-Blat to Qormi instead of taking Mill Street, 300 metres away.

In his view, the intervention that was needed was to encourage pedestrians to use Mill Street, which was much safer. Experts were saying it was better to improve the Mill Street area than build an overpass at the Mriehel bypass.

Transport Malta surveys showed that 90 people per day used Mill Street, as compared to 12 people at the Mriehel Bypass. The issue, therefore, was not costs, but usefulness.

In his view, Dr Gatt said, with regard to bypasses, one could not try to square a circle. Bypasses were there to take traffic and they should not be ruined by various obstructions such as junctions, lights, cameras and crossing points which created danger in order to give people short cuts.

One could argue that one should have underpasses, but experience showed that nobody used them.

Furthermore, an overpass for just 12 people a day was not feasible - and it would need a 100m extension either way to be access for those on wheelchairs, Dr Gatt said.

Gatt says overpass not solution for bypass safety

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