Editorial: Costs of road maintenance failures

Neglecting road infrastructure maintenance often leads to short-term savings but results in significant long-term expenses. While deferring maintenance may reduce immediate costs, it creates hidden hazards that can impede economic development and affect people’s quality of life. 

The maintenance of roads in our towns and villages has been neglected for far too long. While there have been remarkable improvements in the main road network, ignoring road maintenance in town cores poses an avoidable risk to public safety. It impedes access to essential services, especially for vulnerable people.

Ordinary people’s disgust with the state of our roads sometimes drives some individuals to vent their frustration in poignant ways. A main road in San Ġwann, riddled with potholes – which forced an angry resident to highlight the problem by spraying phallic symbols around the re-emerging potholes – was given a temporary facelift four months ago. These repairs did not last long.

This week, the Small Claims Tribunal awarded a car owner’s insurance company €550, holding that the Pembroke local council was to blame for the damage from poor road maintenance.

Many road users can list various failures that are making our roads unsafe. These include potholes, cracks, and visible wheel marks or grooves on road surfaces caused by repetitive heavy traffic loads, pavements with dangerous steep ramps leading to underground garages, detachment of aggregate particles from the surface of the roads, leaving a rough and loose texture, and sunken areas in road surfaces, often caused by inadequate support from the subgrade layers.

In areas wrecked by excessive construction, like St Julian’s and Sliema, the pavements are a disgrace, posing a danger to any pedestrian who risks mounting them.

Poor water drainage and misaligned manhole covers are other hazards drivers must manage, especially in heavy rainstorms. There is not just one reason for the authorities’ unacceptable disregard for the duty of care for ordinary citizens.

Local councils are, in theory, responsible for road maintenance in town centres. Councillors are undoubtedly well informed about what needs to be done to maintain the roads in their area of responsibility. However, if the central government does not give them the proper technical and financial support, road maintenance is put on the back burner.

Local council officials must show more empathy when frustrated residents claim damages allegedly caused by road maintenance failures.

To mitigate the endemic challenge of making our roads safe, a multi-pronged approach must be adopted. The central government must define a proactive maintenance programme with clear objectives and financing plans in consultation with local councils.

Competent infrastructure engineers must also manage maintenance work, continuously supervising contractors to ensure that the job is of the highest quality and has the minimum impact on residents.  

When these best-practice road maintenance initiatives are adopted, it is crucial that the different stakeholders are held accountable for the outcome of the investment made.

Local councils and the central government must accept that accidents caused by poor road maintenance on all our roads are actionable in our courts, and aggrieved citizens who prove their claims are entitled to compensation.

Politicians must acknowledge that road users have a legal and moral right to safe roads.

In a country that prides itself on progress, the persistent failure to maintain basic infrastructure is a national embarrassment. Clean, safe, and accessible roads are not a luxury. They are a fundamental public service. Malta must treat road maintenance as a matter of public duty, not political convenience or administrative afterthought. Is it too much to ask?