Qormi local council has presented plans to build an underpass crossing the Mrieħel bypass, saying its alternative to the government's flyover proposal would “not take up one centimetre of agricultural land”.
The council has risen to the challenge of proposing an option to the project that would eat up “a minimum of 14 tumoli of fields”, said Qormi mayor Josef Masini Vento.
Transport Minister Ian Borg had told him and his councillors he would consider alternatives and the local council promptly commissioned architectural firm DAAA Haus to design what has been termed the Central Business District Green Mile, coming up with an underpass instead, which does not involve any land expropriation.
“We were told to come up with an alternative project and that is what we did,” Masini Vento said.
This was unanimously approved by the council, following a presentation, and submitted to the authorities just over a week ago. But no feedback has yet been received from the ministry.
Instead of mega concrete structures, it would involve digging
Infrastructure Malta CEO Frederick Azzopardi has, meanwhile, enquired about a Traffic Impact Assessment until 2048, which the mayor deemed far-fetched. He pointed out that the local council did not have such resources and sent the ball back into his court by asking whether the agency had done one itself.
The council has already spent €5,000 on the alternative plan, which has presented a totally different option from the government’s “enormous” flyover on the Mrieħel bypass although costings and projections for completion are roughly the same, the mayor said.
“Instead of mega concrete structures, it would involve digging,” he said.
Four-lane underpass proposed
The new designs include four lanes in an underpass, with a fifth in the middle for accidents and emergencies, Masini Vento explained, pointing out that flyovers were passé – projects of the 1970s that were now being eliminated elsewhere.
They also catered for two lanes on ground level for slow traffic to access Mriehel’s Central Business District, he said.
The land that would be taken up by the flyover – around six metres into fields along the bypass for a whole strip of one mile – would affect many farmers, he said.
It also gives rise to water problems, with the local council envisaging this would end up in the inhabited valley of Qormi, which was below sea level, if not absorbed by the cultivated fields.
The dangerous junction on the Mriehel bypass (File photo)Dangerous junction
The government has insisted on the flyover to remove the need for traffic coming from the south to have to cross the busy bypass to enter one area of the business district. The project is earmarked for the area where the pedestrian bridge is located.
The mayor pointed out that more traffic meant more pollution for what is already the second most polluted area in Malta. The surrounding property would also be devalued through the Infrastructure Malta project.
Moreover, the fresh plans did not affect the space next to the fireworks factory for the pyrotechnics to be let off – an area that Infrastructure Malta’s project had not catered for, the mayor said.
Nationalist MP praises proposal
Speaking in Parliament in the evening, Nationalist MP Ryan Callus praised the Qormi council for its proposal saying it had shown political maturity
He said the government should seriously consider the proposal, from which all were set to benefit, as an alternative.
Callus appealed to the infrastructure minister to listen and to the prime minister to push for the council’s proposal to be accepted.