Infrastructure Malta rebuilt another 128 residential roads in the first eight months of this year, an average of four roads per week. This was announced by the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Capital Projects Aaron Farrugia who explained that complementing major infrastructure projects, the daily works on residential and rural roads are ongoing, according to the needs of the people.
The 128 residential roads it rebuilt between January and August add up to around another 27 kilometers of roads with a higher quality infrastructure. The thousands of families who reside on these streets can now be counted among others, whose streets the agency has helped rehabilitate as part of an extensive and ongoing seven-year programme focused on the improvement of Malta’s residential streets, and which is now entering its fourth year.
“Together with the residents and the local councils, we are looking at creating infrastructure for the people, which addresses the needs of society. But infrastructure needs also to improve the quality of life and be suitable for both the present and the future. We will create schemes to incentivise local councils to invest in active mobility spaces; incentives that make sense and that foster discussion so that we don’t necessarily do what we have always done, while continuing to build on the good that has been done. Through this investment, we are looking to equip the country with modern infrastructure suitable for the 21st century”, stated Minister Farrugia.
In these 128 residential streets Infrastructure Malta added or rebuilt 50 kilometers of pavements and laid 80 kilometers of new services for the distribution of underground services, which include water pipes, water ducts drainage, ducts and channels for rainwater, electricity cables and pipes (ducts) for internet cables and other telecommunication services. In order to complete the reconstruction of these roads, the agency’s contractors used 73,000 tons of asphalt. Wherever it is necessary on the roads in which works are carried out, Infrastructure Malta is making new systems of ducts and gutters for rainwater. In fact, in the last three and a half years the agency has added more than 53 kilometers of ducts, channels and gutters for the collection of rainwater from Maltese roads. At the same time it is fixing, cleaning and improving rainwater systems that already existed in other streets.
The agency has managed to maintain the rhythm of its work on residential roads and improve their quality at the same time that it is still carrying out a number of large infrastructural projects such as Kirkop Tunnels and Airport Intersection Project (KTAIP), Luqa Junction Project, Mrieħel Underpass Project and Grand Harbor Clean Air Project, in the Grand Harbour. It also continued with the improvement of rural roads and with a continuous programme of repairs and maintenance in many other roads. The unprecedented investment for the improvement of residential roads will continue unabated in the coming months, so much so that Infrastructure Malta is already in the process of rebuilding around 120 other roads while works on others will start soon.