I find it simply amazing that the mayor of St Paul’s Bay and a fully qualified architect at Transport Malta, presumably working with the manager of traffic management in local council areas, have placed pedestrian crossings immediately outside a garage in Triq Torri San Pawl and outside garages in Triq Paci.
It is absolutely inconceivable to me that people with years of experience should be so ignorant of the law, let alone lacking in common sense, that these crossings have been placed with utter disregard for the norms of civilised behaviour.
Another season of total chaos is coming to an end for people needing to get from Naxxar or Sliema to St Paul’s Bay, Mellieħa and the ferry terminus. Traffic increases from Friday through Sunday evenings from the foot of San Pawl Tat Targa on the one road and from the Magħtab turning on the Coast Road.
First of all the San Pawl Tat-Targa traffic finds it next to impossible to join the Coast Road because the part-time traffic lights approved by the Traffic Control Board in 1997 or 1998 were never erected and luckily the expensive and obviously useless roundabout – because one gives way to traffic on the right – has never been laid either.
One then finds that it was suggested by the highest echelons within the Traffic Control Board that traffic could only turn left to get into or out of J.F. Kennedy Street, thus eliminating the major source of the constant traffic congestion. Of course, nothing has ever been done.
This could possibly be because there is no competent soul within Transport Malta with enough skills to revise the timing of the traffic lights at the junction of Triq Il-Korp Tal-Pijunieri with Kennedy Drive. As things stand the lights remain green for about 15 seconds, only allowing people to leave Kennedy Drive to either go to Buġibba or Qawra Point. They don’t seem to give much time for people coming down the St Paul’s Bay Bypass or using the slip road to Qawra from Burmurrad.
A suggestion based upon my 57 years of driving experience is that the road from Kennedy Drive be serviced with green lights for a clear 30 seconds. The slip road into Qawra or Buġibba would then have green lights all the time that traffic can exit Buġibba/Qawra into Kennedy Drive, as well as when traffic is allowed straight down Kennedy Drive in the direction of Kennedy Grove.
To ensure no one turns left at the traffic lights on the main road a large ‘no left turn’ sign should be erected.
Traffic flow would immediately be improved, the junction from J.F. Kennedy Street could then be for traffic turning left only and people unlucky enough to have to use St Paul’s Bay or points further north would arrive in better frames of mind.
The main problem seems to be to that as the suggestion constantly emanates from a retired consultant with the ADT, it must be ignored and everything must be on hold until the plans for this area of Kennedy Drive and the final section of the Coast Road have actually been approved and then implemented.
This could be some years down the line as Transport Malta handles very few kilometres of road every year, and the local council and mayor of this area either keep quiet or are simply ignored.
I was absolutely fascinated to see the photograph of the state of Vjal Il-Haddiem in Rabat in The Sunday Times on September 4. From memory, Dingli Road is indeed government responsibility but Vjal il-Haddiem may still be Rabat local council’s responsibility.
I am fascinated because the architect in charge of council traffic management has been a Dingli councillor for some years and it would be common courtesy to ensure that all signs and roads were up to par within a considerable radius of Dingli. This would not infringe any rules and would do the residents of various nearby localities a great deal of good.
One would have thought that by the same token there would be incredible co-operation between the architect responsible for signage on the arterial and distributor roads and the architect in charge of council business. Or is this yet another vain hope.
My best wishes go to the residents of these two towns in their search for acceptable road construction, preferably in the immediate future.
At the time of writing, Arriva Bus stops are still often in hazardous areas, but at least the bus service is getting a little more reliable, if still a trifle slow.