Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1475004
THE traffic gridlock that Malta experienced last Monday, spread from the road from Pietà to Val- letta to several other areas of Malta. If one were to calculate the cost to the country – man- hours of work lost and the extra unnecessary fuel consumption – I dare say the cost would run into millions of euro. Add to this the carbon emissions from station- ary cars with their engines run- ning and the cost to the country, I am sure, would be prohibitive. Many who were dismayed with the inconvenience looked at the gridlock from a personal point of view. As much as 26 bus routes were affected and slow-moving traffic was experienced in other parts of Malta, miles away from where the original gridlock took place. Every driver's nerves were in tatters. The maintenance works that caused this gridlock had to be done but the gridlock was the result of bad traffic management that did not provide adequate al- ternatives to the roads that were closed because of the works be- ing carried out. Transport Malta and Malta Public Transport ap- proved of the alternative routes and the resulting gridlock ex- posed these regulators as simply amateurs lacking any profes- sionalism. The fact that within 24 hours, Transport Malta found a solu- tion such that the works could continue and a repetition of the gridlock was avoided the follow- ing day speaks volumes. It shows the shabby way that whoever is responsible provides alterna- tive routes when some roads are closed. Surely Transport Malta must have statistics on the number of cars per hour that pass through Triq l-Independenza in Pietà in various hours of the day and they should have been able to calculate how much traffic the alternative route could take. I am sure no such study was made and someone 'guessed' how the traffic should be divert- ed without any care about the mathematics involved: the num- ber of cars that would have to opt for the provided 'diversion'. Last Monday the roadworks affected a major arterial road and the alternative route – the so-called 'diversion' – proved in- adequate. But this happens – to a lesser scale – practically every day all over Malta, wherever roads are closed for some reason or other. Every one who is a pivate car owner meets road 'diversions' every day – some are small road- work jobs, others are road clo- sures because of building works in private sites. In the case of building works, the Local Coun- cil involved takes a fee for a per- mit to close a road and a traffic warden is placed on the site to tell drivers that they cannot proceed down a particular way. Many times this is so obvious with cranes and other machin- ery in the middle of a road that I wonder what the traffic warden is actually doing 'directing' traf- fic away from the road that has been closed up. Does anyone provide an alter- native route in such cases? No- body does, of course. In some cases reversing the direction of the flow in a one-way road tem- porarily during the closure of a road would solve the problem easily. But this is never done. They just leave it to the drivers to find an alternative route. In one particular case where there was a diversion and the part of the road that was blocked included a bus stop, passengers waited at the bus stop for a bus to appear when the bus had been diverted to follow a somewhat different route. Nobody both- ered to make at least a notice at the bus stop telling people of this 'diversion'. This attitude has to change. Otherwise, temporary traffic closures will become one of the most serious issues that irk the Maltese population. In spite of the millions of EU and Malta government funds spent to up- grade the road network, the or- dinary citizen is still being treat- ed shabbily when it comes to temporary road closures. Orbán tenets In a recent speech delivered in a region of Romania which has a large Hungarian commu- nity, Viktor Orbán, the Prime Minister of Hungary, spoke in harsh terms against immigra- tion saying it should be called "population replacement or in- undation." Giving voice to the belief un- derlying his nationalism, he opposed the mixing of races, saying: "Migration has split Europe in two". It is worth mentioning that in March 2021, Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party quit the European People's Party (EPP) group in the European Parliament after a vote that paved the way for it to be suspended or excluded from the group. Orbán responded quickly with a letter, making it clear that his party would not stick around for a vote to kick it out of the group and Fidesz re- signed their membership in the EPP group According to Orbán's speech, "one half is a world where Euro- pean and non-European peoples live together. These countries are no longer nations. They are nothing more than a conglom- eration of peoples." He added: "We are willing to mix with one another, but we do not want to become peoples of mixed race." While the far-right prime minister has long faced criti- cism from political opponents and civil society for fanning the flames of racism, homophobia, Islamophobia and anti-Semi- tism, his last speech was more explicitly racial than earlier re- marks. That was too much for Orbán's longtime adviser Zsuzsa Hege- dus, who resigned and lambast- ed the prime minister for "a pure Nazi speech worthy of Goeb- bels." She said the speech could "please even the most blood- thirsty racists" and suggested he was "advocating an openly racist policy that is now unacceptable even for the Western European extreme right." While noting that she has long struggled with her role since the prime minister's 'illiberal turn' – and even directly told Orbán about her concerns over an an- ti-LGBTQ+ law – his latest rhet- oric, she said, still 'surprised' her. This backlash from within the close ranks around Orbán was unexpected. Resignations are uncommon in Orbán's circles, and open dissent from allies is even more unusual. Most state and private media in Hungary have been taken over by Orbán allies during his last 12 years in government and people loyal to him head up key institu- tions across the country in busi- ness, academia, media and even NGOs. This system of patronage has given birth to an elite class of wealthy conservative cronies in Hungary – called 'Orbán's oli- garchs' by critics. 7 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 31 JULY 2022 OPINION One gridlock too many Michael Falzon micfal45@gmail.com Traffic was at a standstill in Msida and Pieta