A traffic master plan for summer feasts and other events could not be drawn up, as they were “rarely carved in stone”, the transport authority said.

A Transport Malta spokesman said the national transport committee discussed road closures for local religious festivals on a case-by-case basis and a comprehensive schedule of closures and a matching traffic plan was too difficult to plan in advance.

Transport, delivery and logistics companies have long been calling for such a plan to be developed, as road closures due to festi were a regular headache to them and ordinary motorists.

“In summer it’s every weekend. Sometimes it’s more than one locality having a festa at the same time. There must be a way we can plan this out to minimise the confusion on the roads,” one logistics company owner told the Times of Malta.

The spokesman, however, said that while the general calendar for feasts was quite fixed, the need for road closures at special times (to hold religious precessions and other activities) varied from year to year. To make matters worse, road works were often impossible to plan ahead.

The committee gets new requests for closures every week. From trenching to repairing, and even for building new roads

“The committee gets new requests for closures every week. From trenching to repairing, and even for building new roads,” he said.

The situation was further compounded by unforeseeable delays in roadworks.

The spokesman said workers never knew what they could find when digging up a stretch of road, “from discovering unmarked structures to equipment failure”.

The issue of festa-related road closures was raised earlier this week when this newspaper reported that arterial roads around Msida would be temporarily closed to traffic this weekend to allow for fireworks to be launched during the Msida festa.

The closures were met with disappointment from transportation companies, who have complained that the nearby Kappara junction works had already made the traffic situation problematic.

The authority spokesman confirmed that Ta’ Xbiex Seafront would be closed all day today near the Busy Bee café, with traffic from both directions diverted on to Rue d’Argens.

Tomorrow the same stretch in Ta’ Xbiex will be closed from 10.30am to noon and on the Msida end from 11am to 3pm. The whole road will then be closed between 6 and 11pm for the procession.

Fireworks being launched from the arterial Regional Road will see closures today between 10pm and 11pm; tomorrow the road will be closed between 7pm and 8pm and again between 9pm and 10pm.

A Transport Ministry spokeswoman said the Kappara junction works would hardly factor in.

“The traffic capacity at Kappara, during the feast, remains close to what it was last year, despite the ongoing works,” she said.