First up, the good news: the Kappara flyover project is well underway, and the whole thing has consistently been on schedule.

When work on the €35 million, EU-funded junction started all way back in 11th April 2016, Transport Malta had stated it was expected to be completed in 77 weeks… which would be October 2nd of this year. Last week, transport minister Ian Borg announced the flyover will be surfaced later this month and open for traffic in September. At this rate, the entire project will be complete well before the end of the year.

Since the Kappara Junction is one of the busiest roads on the island (around 90,000 vehicles pass through it everyday), that’s exciting to hear. However, until the entire project is completed, you might want to avoid the area.

The last remaining wing wall for the Kappara flyover started being constructed just over a week ago, with Transport Malta announcing slight modifications to the existing traffic management system. The most notable amendment was to the Northbound lanes of Regional Road, which saw the stretch leading up to St. Julian’s being limited to one lane for the whole way. The speed limit has also been capped at 30 kilometres per hour. Traffic from Bella Vista San Ġwann are also being diverted onto Triq il-Huttaf in Kappara, while heavy vehicles are being diverted onto Triq Birkirkara.

And while this is a necessary step taken for safety reasons and to improve the efficiency of the final stages of the project, it’s obviously creating a considerable backlog of traffic. This week started with a traffic jam stretching from Marsa all the way to the new bottleneck in Kappara, and this morning, a traffic accident in the Santa Venera tunnels made the whole thing even worse.

Transport Malta have already urged drivers to use alternative routes, drive carefully and follow directions on the site, and they’ve also shared a satellite photo of the area showing the new arrangements to the traffic system.

The TL;DR Version: The Kappara Flyover Junction is nearly done, and that’s awesome, but you might want to avoid the area for now if possible, especially if you’re not a big fan of early morning traffic jams in Maltese heatwaves.

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David Grech Urpani

Lovin Malta's Head of Content, Dave has been in journalism for the better half of the last decade. Prefers Instagram, but has been known to doomscroll on TikTok. Loves chicken, women's clothes and Kanye West (most of the time).