The need for wider roads to accommodate the ever-increasing traffic is certainly an issue that demands solutions often entailing the uprooting of trees.

Trees take many years to mature and it is understandable that by chopping them we have to wait long years to see new ones reach the same maturity. And this is heartbreaking to most.

May I suggest a way for having the cake and eating it at the same time, with regard to the Mdina Road, leading to Rabat? The road can still be widened without losing the trees… by using the present tree-lined road as a one-way traffic lane and creating another road at either side of the trees for the traffic lane going to the opposite direction.

One row of trees will be used as a centre strip, preventing the need to chop them. The other row of trees remains as is. This is what happened in Burmarrad not long ago. Surely, there is enough unbuilt land on either side of the long avenue to adopt this where possible.