As excavation works are nearing completion, Infrastructure Malta is entering a new stage of the Mrieħel Underpass Project, where workers are now starting to build the tunnel walls, Minister Ian Borg announced during a press conference where ongoing works on this project were followed.
First announced in 2021, the Mrieħel Underpass project will be offering a new 60-metre tunnel connecting Mdina Road with Mrieħel Bypass, at Mrieħel junction next to the Malta Financial Services Authority offices.
Minister Ian Borg said, “This will be another infrastructural project which, in addition to complementing the Central Link, will further alleviate the problem of traffic and congestion in these areas. But not only that. We are a government that has always emphasised and continues to emphasise the importance of people’s safety and therefore in every project we make, from the smallest to the largest, the priority remains to make sure people are safe. Therefore, we will see to it that safer pedestrian and cycling crossings are introduced through which we will be offering more mobility and we will be offering better and safer connections that connect Birkirkara, Mrieħel and Balzan with Triq il-Ħofor, a rural road that leads to Żebbuġ and Qormi”.
Infrastructure Malta is starting to erect more than 290 precast concrete panels to form its tunnel walls. These panels will support the tunnel’s ceiling slab, which will then be covered with the new roundabout and its approach lanes, pedestrian and cycling crossings and landscaped areas.
The underpass is estimated to be opened in the second half of 2022.
