The concrete barriers popping up across the island are safer for the roads on which they are being installed, Infrastructure Malta CEO Ivan Falzon has said.

He was speaking to Times of Malta after readers wrote in to question the increasing use of these barriers.

While most road barriers are still of the steel kind that can be found on the Marsa flyover, Falzon said the concrete ones started being laid down in 2019, following international shifts both in and outside of Europe.

“We are not reinventing the wheel, we are simply following trends,” he said.

The trend is to use concrete barriers on roads that are suitable for them, such as the Mrieħel bypass, which are mostly straight. Not only do they offer better safety for drivers but are also more cost-effective and are even friendlier for the environment, Falzon said.

In England, roadworks in March saw concrete barriers installed on the M3 motorway.

However, many have complained about the look of the concrete dividers as, originally, their assumption was that they would be a temporary rather than permanent solution.

Falzon said aesthetics is not something they have forgotten about as they take every area into context when deciding what barriers to choose on both practical and visual levels.

The Mrieħel bypass is currently being fitted with these safety devices but this means the greenery that lives in between the opposing lanes is now mostly hidden.

“We are looking at options to elevate the plant base and to put the flower arrangement at the upper part of the barrier.”

It is common abroad to fill the space between the barriers with soil, he added.

Infrastructure Malta is in talks with arborists to find the right way forward, as raising the soil may damage the trees.

Asked about painting the blank concrete surfaces, Falzon said decorating them would create the need for more maintenance which, in turn, would mean more road closures, risks and traffic.

While other visual options do exist, such as steel barriers clad in wood, which were introduced last year in select rural areas such as Mġarr, a wood aesthetic may not fit the context of the area, Falzon said.

And they don’t carry the safety benefits of concrete barriers.

Sturdy and strong, there are several reasons that make concrete the safer solution, Infrastructure Malta Head of Quality Assurance Joseph Briffa said.

Shaped in a form known as the ‘Jersey barrier’ after the US state, the concrete dividers feature a wide base that tapers off into a taller wall section, creating a bottom lip.

When a car makes contact with the barrier, the lip pushes it up the side of the barrier, carrying the car’s momentum while also keeping it out of oncoming traffic lanes, Briffa said. The shape of the barrier also pushes the car back into its lane.

This applies to most barrier impacts that tend to happen between a 15- to 25-degree angle.

While metal barriers can cushion the force of an impact by bending and contorting to the blow, Briffa said that the concrete variants fall under the same category, with research showing that they still protect the driver.

“All barriers to be manufactured have to pass very complex calculations as they simulate thorax and neck movement.” These are the two main points of pressure on a driver in a crash.

Even in terms of barrier movement, he continued, the concrete dividers move less than metal ones when contact is made.

“Their working width is practically nothing,” Falzon said.

Briffa explained that, even if a 13-tonne bus travelling at speeds of around 70km/h  made contact with a concrete barrier, the concrete would shift less than a metre from its original spot.

The barriers are also built with connectors that link them all together, supporting each other, he said.

The barriers used in Malta are a mix of imported and locally cast concrete, made by two licensed manufacturers, Delta Bloc and Rebloc.

Another reason to use concrete dividers is their long lifespan, Falzon said.

Despite having a higher initial cost than the metal alternative, concrete barriers are much cheaper in the long run as they can last 50 years without replacement while steel lasts 20, he said.

“Replacing [concrete barriers] is something we haven’t done in the past five years.”

Even environmentally, Falzon explained that disposing of deteriorated steel is extremely difficult while the opportunities for recycling concrete barriers are on the rise.

“Ideally, we don’t have barriers in the first place,” Falzon said, as having obstacles for cars to hit is, in itself, a safety hazard.

“If we had the space to avoid using barriers, we wouldn’t use them.”

In an ideal world, barriers would be replaced with open spaces that would allow cars to naturally slow down following a loss of control, similar to gravel traps in Formula One.

Steel barriers will continue to be used on roads such as flyovers as they make more practical sense, Falzon said, noting their flexibility which allows them to protect bends that concrete cannot.