Last week’s mayhem on the roads caused by spectacular and widespread flooding brought home to the car-driving public – which means virtually every adult in Malta – the inadequacy of our road-building and road-management system.
While the problems in the flood-plains of Valley Road, Gżira and Msida are long-standing and not Transport Malta’s responsibility, what happened on the new roads being constructed between Mellieħa and Ċirkewwa are.
The chaos that occurred along these still uncompleted roads highlighted starkly the concerns which many have expressed already about the way the roads are being constructed – their design, layout and aesthetic impact - and, importantly, called into question the wisdom of building brand new single lane roads.
The inability to overtake led to the compounding of the disruption caused by the rain. If a car, truck or bus breaks down, as happened, the resulting confusion is made worse. If there is a serious accident the inability of rescue services to get through quickly could lead to critical minutes being wasted and the possible loss of life.
The arguments about reducing excessive speed on two-lane roads are understood, but the balance of argument surely points for the need to ensure that access in emergencies is guaranteed. It is not too late for road planners to re-visit this issue.
The Ċirkewwa/Mellieħa roadworks are extremely costly and ambitious. Their planning and programming have been a lesson in how not to do it. The disruption to the life of residents of Mellieħa and to Maltese and Gozitan citizens and tourists has been unconscionable.
The timing of their construction at the very peak of the summer holiday season could not have been worse and has exposed the endemic lack of capacity to cope of Maltese road construction companies.
Although the CEO of Transport Malta may argue, as he has, that the project is being completed broadly to time, the fact of the matter is that thousands of people have been hugely inconvenienced because its success seems to have been measured not by its impact on the driving public, but by how quickly the money allocated by the EU could be spent.
While the Ċirkewwa/Mellieħa debacle has been a major source of complaint because of its massive impact, lack of progress on roadworks in the rest of Malta and Gozo is also causing concern.
The Marsa to the airport section of the arterial road has been completed, but elsewhere – almost wherever one goes – the slow progress and consequent disruption to the travelling public has been huge.
The economic cost in delayed journeys, productive hours lost and extra fuel used must run into several million euros. The frustration caused to individual drivers is incalculable.
Although the argument that you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs is understood, the dispassionate observer cannot help thinking that if Transport Malta had spent a little more time planning the programme of roadworks more carefully and making adequate allowance for the inability of the construction industry to meet the extremely challenging targets set, the outcome would have been more successful.
Transport Malta, and the Minister Austin Gatt, have prior form, however. The launch of the Arriva bus service can be seen with hindsight to have been vastly over-ambitious with similar consequences to those we are experiencing with the road-building programme – a deeply jaundiced and dissatisfied public. Project management is both an art and a science which we – ministers especially – have yet to learn.