Fresh tarmac one week, fresh trenches the next – Malta’s roads are a showcase of short-term fixes posing as long-term planning. Behind the slogans and ceremony, commuters are left navigating a system that promises progress but mostly delivers disruption.
Minister for Transport, Infrastructure, and Public Works Chris Bonett has once again taken to the podium, this time boasting that 319 infrastructure projects have been completed over the past 12 months. That’s €50 million spent and 360,000 metres of roads resurfaced – equivalent, we are told, to 50 football pitches. That’s an exorbitant €1 million for every football pitch. Yet, our roads are far from being the equivalent of an Mbappe, just to stick to the football analogy. They’re more like a third division amateur player.
On paper, what the minister described sounds like a civil engineering dream. On the ground, it’s more of a recurring nightmare.
The first question is the most obvious one – how many of these “50 pitches” were done more than once within this year? The second question follows – is filling one pothole considered as one project? In that case, we need many more “projects”, given the experience drivers have of unscheduled suspension test zones all over the country.
Because let’s be honest: for anyone who has the misfortune of using Maltese roads on a regular basis, the reality is far messier than the ministerial sound bites would suggest.
Let us cut through the polished statements and look around. Roads that were “completed” mere months ago are being dug up again. Utility works that should have been coordinated before the resurfacing are, astonishingly, carried out after the new tarmac is laid – undoing the freshly minted surface like a child tearing up homework they finally finished. If this is what €50 million buys us, one has to wonder: what would €100 million get?
And yet, the buzzwords flow freely: “reshaping mobility”, “inclusive infrastructure”, “improved access”. Meanwhile, commuters are stuck in hours-long traffic jams, dodging crater-like wheel-breakers that reappear after every rainfall like seasonal fungi. Some roads have become obstacle courses. If the strategy is to simulate the lunar surface for aspiring astronauts, then bravo, mission accomplished.
Consider Selmun Hill. Here, over the last three, four years different stretches of the road were re-asphalted, with the result that we have different coloured patches all the way up or down. Maybe someone is a fan of “Fifty Shades of Grey”, given the different tonalities every 50 metres or so.
Meanwhile, nearby Xemxija Hill – another section of this vital commuter artery, which takes thousands towards the northern beaches of Mellieha and Gozo, more so in the summer months – remains an afterthought, with more holes than a knitted quilt. What’s the selection process here? A coin toss?
Then we also have an unfinished stretch in front of the petrol station as one enters or is leaving Mellieha, where manholes stick out a few inches above the surface, forcing drivers to either meander away from them or risk damaging the underside of their vehicle.
And what about safety on our roads? For example, why was a plastic barrier placed in between the two southbound lanes at the St Andrews’-Pembroke intersection last Tuesday?
And, to ask another question, why are signs indicating a road closure not removed once the work is completed? If an example is needed, check the no entry signs at the Tomna-Kappuccini intersection in San Gwann – works in the area finished months ago and yet the no entry signs are still there.
It would then be tempting to dub Minister Bonett the Minister for Traffic, given the level of gridlock and disruption now as dependable as sunrise. Despite years of lofty plans and roadmaps (to be fair, many of which were the responsibility of his predecessors), the traffic problem is as entrenched as ever. Temporary road closures pop up with all the unpredictability of pop quizzes, detours are communicated through cryptic signage – or not at all – and planning remains a reactive exercise. One project finishes, another starts on the same stretch days later. Déjà vu with jackhammers.
One accident on a main artery, then, hits traffic all across the island, as any driver knows.
Infrastructure Malta CEO Steve Ellul graciously recently thanked workers and local councils for their commitment. A lovely gesture. But what the public craves – beyond the feel-good press releases and ribbon-cutting ceremonies – is competence. Roads that last beyond a single season. Works coordinated like a symphony, not a cacophony. Agencies that speak to each other – not after the damage is done, but before it begins.
Still, there appears to be light at the end of the pothole-ridden tunnel. In another press conference (because why have one coordinated update when you can have three overlapping ones?), Minister Bonett declared that better communication and coordination in road construction has been “prioritised”. Enter TRL, a brand-new training programme rolled out across infrastructure entities. Its mission? To ensure smoother communication and prevent the age-old Maltese tradition of digging up freshly completed roads.
It’s encouraging, in theory. But forgive the public for its collective eye-roll. How many “new initiatives” have come and gone, leaving the same confusion behind? “Better communication” is a noble goal – but if that communication still leads to digging up asphalt days after it is laid perhaps the problem isn’t communication, but what’s being communicated.
One must also admire the government’s noble quest to “influence behaviour”, especially among youths. Minister Bonett has spoken of a cultural shift toward sustainable travel habits. Admirable, indeed. Yet this is a bit like lecturing someone on healthy eating while handing them a double cheeseburger. Public transport remains patchy, cycling lanes are sporadic or comically narrow (and end in the middle of nowhere) and walking is often a perilous sport requiring Olympic-grade reflexes. Until the infrastructure supports this cultural shift, calls for behavioural change are, at best, aspirational. At worst, they’re hypocritical.
But the pageantry doesn’t end there. We had two, yes two, ceremonies in which an agreement was signed between two government entities – the first to have cleaning of the roads carried out in off-peak hours, and the second to have landscaping and embellishment works also carried out when the traffic is not at its highest flow.
Groundbreaking stuff. Who would have imagined that mowing grass on roundabouts and sweeping streets during rush hour wasn’t ideal? One might ask: were two formal agreements really necessary for something so painfully obvious? Is this what public service has been reduced to – celebrating common sense as a legislative milestone?
Infrastructure is supposed to symbolise progress, cohesion, and direction. Right now, it symbolises exasperation, fragmentation, and aimlessness. Nobody is demanding perfection. But competence. We’re asking for planning that pre-empts, not reacts. For clarity in why certain roads are resurfaced twice while others disintegrate. For real standards, real timelines, and real accountability.
Because as it stands, we’re not reshaping mobility – we’re just going in circles.
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