Driving along certain arterial thoroughfares has become akin to negotiating your way through a rural passageway, due to “temporary” concrete surfacing works, some of which have been in place for months.
St Catherine Street in Attard, the Birkirkara bypass and Xatt il-Pwales in Xemxija are just some examples of this practice which has prompted numerous complaints from motorists.
READ: Maltese roads are the second-worst in the EU
Apart from slowing down traffic, in some areas the uneven concrete surface is not strong enough to withstand the constant flow of heavy vehicles. Consequently parts of it break up into small fragments, creating gaping potholes.
In the case of Attard, works in connection with infrastructural upgrading carried out by the Water Services Corporation started last July and were originally scheduled to take around a month. Though the trenching works were largely completed weeks ago, the road is still in a shoddy state, having been left partially covered in ordinary concrete not adequate for such purpose. The same thing happened on the Birkirkara bypass where parts of this arterial thoroughfare are desperate for a layer of tarmac following trenching works.
Concrete was the best temporary measure to make roads usable following trenching works
In Xemxija, concrete was used as a substitute for asphalt during patching works carried out months ago with very poor results. The poor state of the road is forcing motorists to slalom around them so as not to damage their vehicles.
Asked for his reaction, a spokesman for the transport watchdog distanced himself saying they had commissioned neither the Birkirkara nor the Attard works. While insisting that concrete was the best “temporary measure” to make roads usable following trenching works, he said the two arterial roads in Attard and Birkirkara would be asphalted in the coming weeks but gave no specific timeframe.
As for Xemxija, Transport Malta pointed out that this was intended to address underlying cavities. Since further works were in the pipeline, a decision was taken to postpone the asphalting works until these would be completed, the spokesman added. Once again, details of the timing of these works were not divulged.
A recent European Commission survey ranked Maltese road quality as the second worst in the EU, just ahead of Romania.