If you were to Google the words ‘island life’ and look at the image search results, you’d be able to see the cover of Grace Jones’ 1985 album by the same name, followed by scores of palm trees and people in various poses of relaxation.

There is peace and tranquillity; there is calm. Clearly, no one in these pictures has taken two hours instead of the expected 20 minutes it should take to get anywhere in our blistering heat.

To say that we have a traffic problem in Malta is as obvious as saying that a president who does not want to sign a legally passed bill should resign. Or,  rather, it should be evident since, as far as I know, we are all sitting in the same traffic jams, wasting our lives away.

This issue didn’t manifest itself yesterday or five years ago, yet, even as the number of hours we were spending gridlocked grew, we were still being gaslighted and told that it was merely our perception that there were too many cars on the road.

It’s a bit like coming home, finding your husband naked in bed with another woman and then being told that it’s all in your head and he was helping her look for her house key.

If major roadworks must be carried out, perhaps they can be done at night on a weekday instead of waiting for the weekend- Anna Marie Galea

There used to be a slight reprieve in the summertime when schools shut for the holidays but even those days are long gone.

Everywhere you look, not only is there traffic but roadworks. I don’t know whose clever idea it was to start several major projects at once and not finish any of them quickly but they need to be given some extra leave and,  perhaps, an extended course at the school of common sense.

In a country where every wide road leads to a bottleneck, how could anyone think this was a good idea? Wouldn’t it be better if projects started years ago were actually finished instead of turning the entire island into an obstacle course during the height of summer and tourist and festa season?

I know that many people don’t mind being late to things because time is also a perception to some but I, for one, would appreciate being able to get somewhere without spending precious time acting like I’m trying to cross the Sahara in a sandstorm.

And what are all these roads even in aid of? None of them have shortened my journey time from A to B because the number of cars on the road only increases.

If our leaders didn’t appear to have the foresight of a shallow, stagnant pond, perhaps, by now, much of the money used to build new roads could have been poured into finding more sustainable ways to travel – better bus routes with more varied networks, a metro system, a wider boat network.

And, well, if major roadworks must be carried out, perhaps they can be done at night on a weekday instead of waiting for the weekend. Perhaps more workers can be employed so that things take days instead of years to complete like they do almost everywhere else in Europe. Less gaslighting and more doing, please.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.