Maltese river roads!

The latest bad weather that accumulated over Malta during the past 24 hours created all sorts of problems. From traffic to extensive vehicle damages all the way to river like roads with cars floating on top of them and houses immersed in water. Although all of the above is witnessed almost every winter, this is the first time (that I can recall) that they happened all together!  This leads you into asking a lot of questions!

Let's start from the traffic issues. After a series of updates on major roads during the past few months, I was expecting that the newly updated roads (like in Marsa) would be able to cater traffic much better than the old ones. However as we all witnessed, they are just as bad! There was traffic all around with vehicles barley being able to move! To make things worse there were many students who go stuck into that traffic who were heading for their o-level resit exams! Many of whom didn't make it in time for the exam or didn't make it at all!

Another problem with our roads that has failed to be dealt with over and over again... is rain water distribution! We have a great problem with surface runoffs! Rain water accumulates in many roads and isn't able to find a way back to the sea or drainage. It's just stuck there waiting for the sun to evaporate it! This surface runoffs cause countless problems (see here) ... ranging from traffic jams, vehicle malfunctions, people being forced to face water currents in the streets, all the way to destroying vehicles altogether (like we saw today).

We desperately need a national rain water collection system. Especially in areas where the land was reclaimed (like Msida and parts of Sliema and Gzira) we can't carry on with these kinds of things. It's embarrassing for us Maltese to see tourists taking videos and photos of such events because they have never seen anything like it!

We have to stop building roads in a hurry (just to win votes) or to give tenders to road constructors (who are affiliated with our party rather than because they are the most competent applicants). If you look at foreign countries you will be amazed. Countries like China who after suffering an earthquake still managed to rebuild a good quality 30 km road in under 2 weeks and our workers take a whole summer to rebuild a road that is just a couple of km long (and it's quality is very poor traffic management wise and water collection wise). With just a concrete water collection plan for surface runoffs we can turn one of our biggest problem in winter in a resource (using this water for agriculture)

We just need a concrete plan, good quality workers (who just work for a couple of hours and then just lay on the pavement wasting time and tax payers money) and a decent government who gives tenders to deserving applicants and decent drivers! Who don't create their own driving rules just because it's raining (like driving on pavements or on the wrong side like we saw yesterday)

Andrea Gatt