A couple of months ago both the editor and I were talking about the perils of hitting either raised or sunken manhole covers with badly broken surroundings. Up until recently, and I have no reason to doubt until present, there is a unit within Transport Malta that we used to call the trenching unit. The unit manager was very good at getting contractors who had failed to do a good job when filling in trenches, holes, manhole covers, etc, to get to the scene of complaint rapidly and ensure the contractor made good with great speed.
Sadly, with the passing years the current attitudes displayed by certain managers, the trenches and manholes can be as patchy as poor workmanship intended and nothing is done. That is until some unfortunate motorist hits a broken manhole surround and inverts his car. The road loses up to 40% of its integrity when trenches are dug, and life being what it is, any poorly repaired job will sink and sag over a few months.
Enthusiastic followers of this column will probably be aware that in my one-time capacity as a traffic management consultant for the ADT and Transport Malta, I was asked to comment on the fact that down there on the visually lovely Qormi roundabout the lane allowing all vehicles proceeding in the direction of Marsa had been closed to traffic ensuring that during rush hour movements many extra vehicles would then try and use Manuel Dimech Street, ooze miserably round the roundabout below PAVI supermarket and then negotiate Manuel Dimech Street until the junction to Marsa was reached. There would be an option for those coming from Zebbug to annoy the residents of Qormi to an incredible state of incoherence by diving left on the approach to Qormi ,using the old main road;Triq Vitorja, which becomes Triq San Bastjan ending up at the PAVI roundabout.
Lesson number one: When a major road reaches saturation point at various times of the day, there is no traffic management solution. Closing an important artery makes the situation worse. A Transport Malta spokesperson justified its decision, saying it had acted after numerous complaints from the Qormi local council and a number of parliamentary questions on this accident black spot.
He said between January 2011 and December last year, 72 road accidents were reported at that spot.
“The measure is in line with the principles of the road safety strategy to improve safety through good practice engineering measures,”the spokesperson said.
The road loses up to 40% of its integrity when trenches are dug
I have a few comments to make in line with my personal opinion and experience.
If the closed section of the road was an accident black spot, it technically means that a number of people have been killed or have suffered life-threatening accidents at this spot in a relatively short time span. As a line of first defence, why were no Accident Black Spot signs erected?
Lesson number two: Look for a safe, simple solution to the problem. In this case follow the example of the English ,who had the same love affair with roundabouts as us and when the roundabout couldn’t cope with the load of traffic at busy times ,switched on temporary traffic lights.
It’s a wellknown fact in engineering circles that the three roundabouts that are most misused are: the Kappara roundabout, this Qormi roundabout and the roundabout at t Birkirkara, specifically the end of the Birkirkara bypass where traffic coming up from Lija simply bounces with gay abandonment onto the roundabout without a care for vehicles on the right.
Rolling back to the Qormi mess, it would be safe to say that vehicles approaching Manuel Dimech from the PAVI end tend to move onto the roundabout even when vehicles are obviously either going round it or leaving to go down the Marsa road.
As there are no traffic lights and the traffic stream is non-stop during rush hours, this is partly understandable. Hence the spokesperson thought it’s a good engineering measure to close off the offending road. It would be a good enforcement move to penalise all those who fail to obey the rules of the road on roundabouts.
A really hefty fine imposed on a few thousand motorists would work wonders. Or put up some confounded traffic lights and re-open the closed-off section of road and then when we finally finish the Coast Road all the way to Mellieha and finally have built fly-overs on the Kappara roundabout and the Paola traffic light junction, let’s do the same at Qormi.