Main Gozo road with only ‘occasional congestion’ to be widened

A major road-widening project between Marsalforn and Rabat in Gozo will be exempt from an environmental impact assessment despite the loss of 10,693sq.m of agricultural land and the uprooting of hundreds of trees.

The Environment and Resources Authority decreed that the impacts of the development are “unlikely to be significant to the point of warranting an EIA”.

The road will create a new route to commute between the two villages, resulting in the uptake of 3,557sq.m of agricultural land.

The new road was already foreseen in the 2006 local plan. An ERA screening report shows the road being widened across a number of valleys supporting watercourses and harbouring a number of Aleppo pine trees.

8,675sq.m of undeveloped arable land will be used for the construction of a retaining wall but will be reinstated to its original state once the construction works are completed.

The project is being justified by “occasional traffic congestion” at the arm of the roundabout junction connecting Triq il-Kapuccini, with Triq ir-Repubblika in Victoria. The narrow carriageway at the roundabout arm at Triq il-Kapuccini also needs an upgrade as it does not conform to the requirements of the road standards, leading to additional bottlenecks.

Since the road will retain the current single carriageway with a vehicular lane in each direction, no significant impact on air quality is expected.

The works will see the uprooting of 305 trees and shrubs, most of which are planted along the roadside. Out of these, 98 will be transplanted within the road itself. The rest are either deemed to be not transplantable or considered invasive. In addition to the 98 transplantable species, 168 new indigenous species will be transplanted, with a minimum height of 3 metres.

The ERA said the project was modified to reduce its environmental impact, such as with the reduction of the bi-directional bicycle lane from 3m to 2.5m throughout, to limit the take-up of undeveloped land.

Other improvements included the reduction of over-formalised splays, field ramps constructed in beaten earth and the width of pavements, bicycle lanes, bus lay-bys kept to a reasonable minimum, and soft landscaping introduced in the Kappucini area.