Roads that perforce we use on a daily basis are crumbling into a zigzag of lines a couple of centimetres wide. Unfortunately, from time spent in the English Fens, where this is a common occurrence, the roads are being built on peat, which absorbs water like a champion beer drinker consumes beer, and then dries out leaving a totally broken surface that can rip tyres, and in the worst cases, damage wheel rims as well. This is quite forgetting the thousands of potholes, big and small, that alter in shape and size every time it rains hard, or the roadways that are subject to river-like conditions.
Frankly, roads need to be repaired on a daily basis, not by force when the last chance of winter rains falls around Easter time. This will need a serious amount of money to do as it is vital that potholes are properly filled in to international standards, and not using the prevailing slap-happy methods adopted by the Minister for Transport and his grand henchmen and women.
Sixty years ago, when I first drove in Malta, oddly clad blokes with buckets of cold mix happily filled in the holes whether they had been full of water or not. It didn’t matter so much then as there were only 20,000 or so vehicles using our roads, which were narrow and wound around much as they probably had done for a 1,000 years or more.
Today the Transport Ministry has a multitude of architects with master’s degrees, well able, were the funds available, to do a magnificent repair job. I would suggest that the paymaster general relaxes the purse strings considerably, possibly by getting vehicle registration taxes, number plates costs, licensing fees, and so on, placed in the hands of the people who should be out and about supervising the hole-mending processes.
If I were a senior, ‘low-key’ Spanish manager, I would, by now, have driven all the existing and proposed bus routes, and insisted that all bus routes be properly surfaced, no holes, cracks or anything that could damage the public transport vehicles
By now, most of us must be aware that somewhere in the background, possibly learning Maltese or even English, there lurks a gang of Spanish managers of the new bus service. Talk about a low-key start to what may well be a short-lived experience! After all, Arriva were pretty experienced in the art of carrying passengers on normal roads along normal routes. Their failure could quite possibly have been in failing to understand the root bloody-mindedness of some of the drivers, managers, and dare we suggest it, union representatives who, along with certain passengers, did their level best to ensure the failure of the service. This, you must understand, is my opinion and not based on documented facts that may have fallen within my grasp.
If I were a senior, ‘low-key’ Spanish manager, I would, by now, have driven all the existing bus routes, have investigated the newly proposed routes, and insisted in very bold language that all bus routes would be properly surfaced, no holes, cracks or anything else that could damage the very large, not so large and even small public transport vehicles. After all, it’s with total amazement that I read that a considerable number of route buses, only a few years old, are no longer ‘fit for purpose’, and this disregards the incredible number of bendy buses that are stored between Naxxar and San Ġwann.
Long gone are the adventures tied up with the Spanish Armada, Spanish Gold or even the Spanish Civil War. This bold endeavour deserves the best that we, the most hospitable race in Europe, can offer this brave band that wishes to make a go of their venture in Malta and Gozo.
An increasing number of drivers have used the new sections of the Coast Road from Salini to the top of Pembroke hill. I notice that some sections of newly-surfaced road have a kerb about 5cm high, and yet the surface, possibly not the non-slip wearing course (who knows?), is breaking up in places.
Could this be that a variety of contractors, possibly not all good tarmac men, have been allowed to ply their trade on this potentially wonderful local road? I personally like the efforts made to surface the route through the White Rocks Complex.
Sadly though, it simply highlights the stupidity of a policy that allowed so many very decent bungalows and apartments to be vandalised beyond the possibility of reuse. Factually, I was attempting to reach the Madliena/Għargħur turn-off and found I had missed it completely as the expected road had been closed off.
Rather than waste further time, I battled round, climbed the Birguma Bypass and reached Għargħur from the Naxxar side. It’s odd to think that I was once a successful local rally navigator.
This Wardija/Żebbiegħ council responsibility has a couple of kilometres of important link road quite simply ‘not fit for purpose’.