Few can deny that many of Malta’s roads are in a terrible state and need urgent attention to make them safer and more driver friendly.

So an extensive programme of road resurfacing around Malta should be good news for drivers and commuters. But with 307 road works projects currently approved by the Transport Authority, drivers have very little to look forward to in the coming months.

Getting to and from work at any time of the day has become a nerve-racking experience for road users. Even if travelling distances in Malta are a small fraction of what they are in most large countries, it sometimes takes an eternity to reach a destination that may be only a few kilometres away.

These delays are not only bad for one’s health but they hit the pockets of both employers and employees as the hours of work lost in commuting is affecting productivity. It is still not quite clear why so many road works projects have to be bunched together, thereby affecting the flow of traffic in most parts of the island.

Bad planning that puts at risk the funding by the EU is one possible reason. When the EU approves road works projects that it co-finances with the national government, it rightly insists that these projects are delivered on time before payment is made.

So delays in starting such projects can result in funds being lost or having to resort to crisis management to hit the deadlines agreed with the EU. The end result is that road users have to cope with long delays when travelling partly as a result of too many roads being closed because of upgrading work.

Transport Minister Joe Mizzi sounds sympathetic when he says that “he is aware that the situation is irritating for motorists and works will be carried out speedily to minimise disturbance to traffic flows”.

But what motorists expect is that this mayhem does not become a permanent feature of driving in Malta.

What road users want is a well spread out programme of road improvements where individual projects are managed professionally, with works preferably carried out during the night, and bottlenecks to traffic flow reduced to a minimum.

Most of our roads now have a single lane for traffic moving in any direction. This is making traffic flow even slower especially when slow-moving or heavy vehicles obstruct normal traffic from flowing normally.

Some heavy vehicles mainly used for construction can be seen moving slowly at all times of the day to get to and from building sites. Couldn’t such vehicles be made to use the roads only at specific times?

Such a measure would undoubtedly be inconvenient and expensive for property developers, but the way heavy vehicles use our roads today is even more harmful to the economy.

The transporting of children to school is also a major contributory factor to the traffic situation – as can be seen when roads become so much easier to navigate during holiday periods – and this needs to be tackled aggressively through the use of more buses and less cars.

Another important consideration of having too many road work projects handled at the same time is that it creates the impression that Malta is just one big chaotic building site.

This does no good to the image of an idyllic country where visitors can get their hard earned money’s worth to spend a few days away from it all.