If the police tried to create mayhem around the Msida area last Sunday, then I congratulate them – it was a roaring success.

The utter, raging chaos they generated by not planning out alternative routes and by not putting up a single sign to advise motorists of any plans and deviations resulted in a confusion of indescribable proportions.

One just cannot close off an arterial node like Msida without planning alternative routes and without putting up signs warning motorists of the Msida blockade.

This is not to say the feast ought not take its routes – it is to say that the situation needs professional handling. It isn’t as if this is the first time that access to Msida was closed off for the feast, so any competent planner ought to have been fully aware of the absurd consequences. It isn’t as if those (ir)responsible had not seen the excellent warning system the transport authority had put up to steer motorists away from the Coast Road works.

I was caught in six massive blockage points as I tried to escape from the perfect trap they had set. At not a single one was there some sign giving advance warning. Nor was there a single sign giving advice as to how to get out of the unholy mess.

All the police did was put up crash barriers blocking any access to Msida. There were police officers at a number of those barriers, on the side of the crash barriers away from the traffic, rendering their yellow waistcoats ludicrously useless. The police officers I saw did nothing but lean their elbows on the barriers and chatted away calmly, without even looking at the huge pile-ups.

After having been stuck in the mess for some 20 minutes, I found myself in a side street and in front of me, a police officer talking on his phone. I stopped and asked him to guide me out. His reply was incredible: “Try the streets behind the parish church, perhaps they haven’t been closed yet.”

Of course they were closed. Getting out again took me another 15 minutes, only to then find myself in the next grip, and the next one, six times in all, for 50 minutes!

Someone I know asked for advice how to get out of the pandemonium, saying he was going from Gżira to Valletta.

The policeman’s reply was that he should have taken the Santa Venera tunnel. Why anybody should think of going to Valletta from Gżira via Santa Venera defies any logic. When he pointed out the absence of any signs advising motorists in any way, what he got was a “ħeqq”.

Consider the thousands of euros worth of fuel burnt into sheer waste by idling car engines, the thousands of wasted man-hours and the wear and tear of sensitive car engines parts. And consider above all, the fumes polluting the environment – all thanks to sheer, crass inefficiency.

Could somebody plan for next year from now, for goodness’ sake?

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