Another feasibility study gone AWOL
I quote a report in Malta Today, dated 25 January this year, of a press conference which Muscat gave in a private citizen’s house (electoral campaign, getting close to the people, ara kemm hu minn taghna & c & c):
Labour leader Joseph Muscat promised Qormi residents that a Labour government would commission a study to choose the most feasible option between a footbridge or an underpass for the Mriehel bypass.
There has been no feasibility study that we know of, but yesterday Transport Minister Joe Mizzi announced that a pedestrian footbridge is “in the pipeline”. I quote Malta Today again:
Mizzi produced sketches of a planned bridge for the Mriehel bypass. Even though no timeline has been yet set for the commissioning and development of this bridge, the transport minister announced that it will have “solar-powered lifts”.
According to a minister spokesperson, the bridge is to be financed from local funds which should be allocated in the next budget.
At the same event, Mizzi deplored the Eur845,000 which he said were spent on consultancy – without saying over what period – but then quite obviously thinks nothing of spending Eur1 million on a pedestrian footbridge which might be used by a maximum of 12 people a day.
The Times carried a report on 12 January 2011 about a parliamentary discussion on the subject of this bridge and its alternatives. Basically, it emerges from that report that Transport Malta had surveyed pedestrian traffic in that area and found that only 12 people a day cross the Mriehel Bypass, while between 80 and 90 a day cross via Mill Street, which is just 300 metres down the road. So effectively, this bridge is being built so that 12 people don’t have to walk 300 metres down the road to Mill Street, which is a safe crossing.
I quote from that report in The Times, which is incorrectly written using the past tense when it should use the present. Because they are reporting on what was said the day before, they put everything in the past tense, including things that are happening in the present, which changes the meaning. It is, not was, an internationally-accepted norm etc. The Mriehel bypass takes, not was taking, 42,000 vehicles a day…and so on. I wish reporters wouldn’t do this.
It is an internationally-accepted norm that four-lane roads should not be interrupted by junctions and traffic lights. The Mrieħel bypass was taking 42,000 vehicles a day, linking Marsa to the north. Any intervention should be made at Mill Street as suggested by the technical experts.
Referring to the criticism by Mrs Coleiro Preca regarding the number of people crossing the bypass, Dr Gatt said that the TM surveys were made during the morning and afternoon. Between 80 and 90 pedestrians crossed Mill Street daily while only 12, or two an hour, crossed the Mrieħel bypass.
The alternative to the proposed bridge, he said, was to be found 300 metres away and was already being used by the Tal-Blat residents. He reiterated that decisions should be taken by technical experts which were competent enough.
Dr Gatt said a zebra crossing or pelican lights did not make any sense because traffic moving at 80 kph would not be calmed within a short distance. Insofar as the underpass was concerned, the minister said experience had shown that the one at the Birkirkara bypass was not used.
He pointed out that an overhead bridge would also require a 100-metre approach on both sides for wheelchair users.
Dr Gatt said the solution laid in impeding people from crossing the bypass and use the present alternative at Mill Street.
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Is a lift going to be incorporated within each tower to accommodate wheelchairs?
What is the estimated annual cost per to keep it in good repair?
What is the estimated cost to keep it lit at night?
How much is it going to cost per person that makes use of it?
How many people can it carry at any one time?
Will it be sustainable?
Is a private company going to build it and will a tender be issued?
Will the height be safe enough to avoid those vehicles that keep ripping the overhead road signs?
The design does not seem to be arched but is a continuous straight span, this means that the materials will have to be much heavier to take the weight without sagging although the cables may help a bit.
Not a happy design overall and quite unimaginative.
A bit like that horrid Bugibba staircase in fact.
Can’t you see that this set up needs an army of maintenance people round the clock?
Just imagine what will happen if a handicapped person in a wheelchair gets trapped in the lift for two hours in that glass tower at noon in August.
That’s a shoddy, dangerous setup, I must say.I never saw this unattended lift setup anywhere else around the world. You may see it in train-stations or airports but those have a 24/7 emergency service.
They obviously owe a favour to somebody who supplies “solar powered lifts” (which DO exist, and of which there ARE suppliers in Malta, but why mention them specifically?).
If people are fit enough to walk from Qormi to no man’s land, then surely they are fit enough to walk up one-and-a-half flights of stairs?
[Daphne – It’s the wheelchair access that’s the problem. Because, you know, lots of people in wheelchairs cross that highway.]
It become ‘no man’s land’ when someone with a ruler and a pencil drew a line, effectively ostracizing a small community, which had until then been on the outskirts of Qormi.
I do not question this decision – every country needs arterial roads. But at least give the residents of that community a valid and safe alternative for a crossing.
Labour are a bit like the person who saves a few cents here and there by shopping at slightly cheaper shops (even if that means having to walk for 10 more minutes to get to the cheaper shop) but then thinks nothing about blowing 10 euros on lottery tickets.
They want to skimp on the eternal flames. They think that a Renzo Piano designed parliament is money ill-spent. They consider money spent on consultancy to be a waste (after all, the Chinese do it for free).
Nevertheless, throwing millions at infeasible bridges is perfectly fine. Splurging on ridiculous and unnecessary appointments of incompetent people is fair game as well,not to mention all the state money which is being used for Labour propaganda purposes only three months after an election too.
This resembles the investment of NASA of over USD1million in inventing the space pen that could write in ink in zero gravity, when the Russians asked “What’s the concept?” and made do with the pencil.
So now we also know that whenever there’s a breaking headline saying “zero expenditure in surveys we will consult with the people”, we should look adjacent to that to see what unnecessary outlay has been planned.
Just a simple matter of perception.
Dan il-gvern li jghid iwettqu, tiswa’ kemm tiswa’ l-wieghda !
Hemm ha, diga kwazi lest.Bil-liftijiet u l-pannelli jekk ma tridx.
Kif inhu fiz-zifna jmissu jaghmel iehor ghal-Halluqin biex jitnehhew id-dwal tat-traffiku fejn Vjal il-Kungress tal-Ewropa jinqasam minn Triq il-Gudja.
The use of lift is understandable because it will reduce land take up. But can somebody please ask the Minister how much it will cost per year to maintain these lifts?
How much will it cost per year to keep the bridge, the lifts and the walkways leading to them clean?
What measures will be taken to prevent vandalism? Will the bridge be closed at night?
Can the Minister guarantee that the bridge, lifts and walkways will be kept in a suitable state for people to use?
It seems Joe Mizzi wants to save some public money. Studies and report? Who needs such waste when you have a minister that knows it all.
Pity his parsimony does not extend to when he was minister in the 1996-1998 Labour government when he commissioned the Kercem (dry) oil well.
He wasted 33 million euro, then, on his personal fantasy, drilling the deepest well in he Mediterranean. Ask a geologist and he will tell you what a sham the Kercem well had been! So many schools and hospital extensions could have been built with those 33 million euro, and the ‘hofra’ would not have been a bottomless pit.
Daphne, why don’t you shut up and call it a day?
You are past your USE BY DATE.
You tried your best, but your best was not good enough.
How about starting your exit by apologising to John Dalli?
[Daphne – How coarse you are, Mr Loporto. No wonder you support John Dalli and voted Labour. It is you who are past your sell-by date. At 70+ you should take the future of those younger than you are into consideration, and not vote selfishly out of spite. More pertinently, I think it you who should tell the readers of this blog what you think of this government’s performance so far, and why anyone should apologise to John Dalli. Evading justice is not the same thing as a declaration of innocence. If he were innocent, he would not have used false medical certificates to stay away from Malta until Labour was elected, and if he were innocent, his friend Joseph Muscat would not have removed the three chief investigating officers on the case – John Rizzo, Michael Cassar and Angelo Gafa – so that they could not carry on with their investigation. Now go and get drunk at Cafe Cuba with your friends as usual and wait for the prime minister to find a slot for you in its burgeoning gerontocracy, though you will have to queue up behind Martin Scicluna and several other useless old men who don’t particularly care what comes next because they haven’t got that much time left anyway.]
Dear Mrs.Caruana Galizia. I am now more sure that you should shut up. You seem to be getting careless in what you write.
Don’t. you think that you were imprudent when you accuse John Dalli of using FALSE medical certificates. Things like that could land you in what in the USA call S..T.
As for your other comments concerning me,I can assure you I’m used to much worse and so they don’t worrie me in the least.
[Daphne – Really, how will it land me in the ‘S..T’, Silvio? Do you happen to know that your friend Dalli would love the chance to test the soundness of his ‘psycho-social’ problems and his medical certificates, in a court of law? I certainly would appreciate the opportunity to summon his psychiatrist as a witness to ask whether psycho-social problem can vanish overnight, depending on the outcome of an electoral result.]
…besides, if the medical certificates were legitimate, how would his condition permit Joseph to appoint him to the position he now occupies?
Don’t tell me that his ‘previous’ condition has miraculously been cleared up!
Just a thought…
Sa Awissu li ghadda kien ghadu qed jghid li hu Nazzonalist fejn jaqbillu.
silvio says:
August 27, 2012 at 7:07 pm
Since when is it that crticising Daphne means one is no longer a Nationalist?
[Daphne – Sigh. Silvio, you have said on more than one occasion that you are not going to vote. If you were a supporter of the Nationalist Party you would be planning to vote for it, not planning not to vote for it. Deploy some logic, for crying out loud, ghax ezawrejtni issa kemm tirraguna mhawwad.]
[Daphne – Silvio Loporto is no longer a Nationalist because he actively supports the Labour Party and votes for it. Mr Loporto thinks that ‘being a Nationalist’ is like being a Hutu or a Tutsi. In his view, he is a Nationalist even though he votes Labour, because he comes from a Nationalist family background, and I am not a Nationalist even though I support that party with my published views and my vote, because my entire maternal and paternal extended familes were Stricklandjani. Muddled thinking at its worst. You are what you vote. The vote is an expression of one’s political views, not an instrument of malice. How unsophisticated people are here. It’s just amazing. The mentality of southern Italian or Irish peasants. You would think that a man of 74 would have had ample time to grow up, but no.]
Typical Laburist reasoning, trying to muzzle freedom of speech.
Silvio Loporto: an inane, dim, old fart. There is a chasm between your way of thinking and Daphne Caruana Galizia’s and of most of those commenting here. Not having learnt anything, given your age, why don’t you go flock with other birds of your feather, because by now no number of blog-posts will open your mind. It’s too late for that. Just give it up and stick to your circle of ‘progressives’.
A patchy first hundred days – The Malta Independent
http://www.independent.com.mt
Martin Scicluna confirms his opinion that the Maltese electorate did well to put Labour in power but then finds fault with almost all that Muscat did. And this is just the first 100 days.
What did he think we elect a government for? Just for change’s sake? I hope all the pre-electoral hype dished out by Labour will provide the much needed jobs and stable economy.
Yes possibly did well, just to prove that Labour will never be fit for purpose, no matter the guises used
Dawn ma jafux jisthu.
Look at her husband who is on a visit to Libya, today. May we remind him to be prudent.
“The opposition leader said the people seemed to be appreciating more the need to be prudent.
“We have to keep in mind our size and historic mission and it is better, at this point, to say less rather than more. Our security has to be our utmost priority. We have been prudent and we will continue to be so.”
http://www.timesofmalta.com/…/libya-malta-should-continue-to-be-prudent-jo
And if I were the Libyan counterpart of George Vella, I would first present him with a copy of this interview. Then we’ll talk.
Interview: ‘I Don’t want to see Libya divided’ – George Vella – The …
http://www.independent.com.mt › News
[Daphne – The link is incomplete.]
Interview: ‘I Don’t want to see Libya divided’ – George Vella – The ..
http://www.independent.com.mt › News
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110320/local/libya-malta-should-continue-to-be-prudent-joseph-muscat.355723
I guess these are the articles (hopefully the links work)
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2011-08-01/news/interview-i-dont-want-to-see-libya-divided-george-vella-296551/
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110320/local/libya-malta-should-continue-to-be-prudent-joseph-muscat.355723
Excuse me, but the number of persons that cross the bypass is immaterial. Even if it is 12 persons or just 1 person a day, that’s missing the point. And I don’t think that Mill Street is a secure passage either (it’s a busy intersection, in the heart of an industrial area) with no zero crossings, no pelican lights – as one would logically expect on a main artery).
The previous discussions of even putting pelican lights on the bypass is pure bananas, and I am glad that this has been quietly shelved.
If we are all technocrats who base decisions purely on an economic reasoning, then we might as well, have no accessibility networks, postal services, utilities to some of the remote hamlets in Gozo and Malta (like well… Bidnija).
As to whether it should be a bridge or an underground passage that is open to debate, and yes, that is to be based entirely on economics. But actually debating whether their should be a passage of some sorts, is not.
To understand the sheer stupidity of building a bridge there you need to know the area.
Even if they build the bridge, the people still have to walk 300m down to Mill street to enter through to Qormi since there is no way you can access the village centre near the foot of the bridge.
So practically people will still have to walk 300m but instead of the Mriehel side, they will walk it on the Qormi side (on a narrow pavement). This probably just boils down to the interests of some contractors and a couple of votes for Nuxxelina and Marie Louise.
Speaking of contractors, the bridge was probably designed by a disinterested contractor for, ahem, free.
Just love the way the Mriehel side is plonked right in the middle of a field.
How are wheelchairs expected to maneouver through the mud when it rains?
From the bridge to nowhere to a bridge too short to serve anywhere. The Mriehel tower could be done away with if it were to be extended up the gradient. But then, ma jkunux parigg hux?
And why’s the canopy over the central section only? Does the architect actually expect pedestrians to stop and enjoy the traffic?
And pedestrians would still not use the bridge. Birkirkara underpass is seldomly used. There are fines for overspeeding, and fines for jay-walking should be introduced too.