Għajn Dwieli tunnel closed for four days next week

Għajn Dwieli tunnel closed for four days next week – here’s how Paola and the Three Cities will cope

The rhythmic honk that once echoed through the Għajn Dwieli tunnel will fall silent next Monday to Thursday as Infrastructure Malta shuts both bores for urgent waterproofing works. For drivers who use the 400-metre underpass to dart beneath the Marsa-Ħamrun railway embankment, four days may feel like an eternity. Yet for residents of Paola, Cospicua, and the surrounding harbour towns, the closure is more than a traffic inconvenience—it is a brief pause in the daily heartbeat of a community that has learned to live with, and occasionally laugh at, its bottlenecks.

From Monday 12 June at 05:00 until Thursday 15 June at 23:00, all vehicles will be diverted via Triq il-Marsa, Triq Bormla, and the newly refurbished Tal-Barrani flyover. Motorcycles and e-kick scooters will still be allowed through the eastern service lane for safety, but cars, vans, and the iconic white minibuses that ferry late-shift workers to the Freeport will have to find an alternative. The works involve injecting resin into micro-cracks that appeared after last winter’s relentless storms, a precautionary measure to prevent the sort of flooding that famously stranded commuters in ankle-deep water back in 2018.

Local context: more than a shortcut
Ask any Kottonera resident what Għajn Dwieli means and you will hear a patchwork of memories: the smell of ħobż biż-żejt wolfed down behind the steering wheel before the morning crawl; the first glimpse of the illuminated dome of the Mosta church framed in the tunnel’s exit mirror; the shared grimace when brake lights turn red at 07:58 precisely. “It’s our unofficial timekeeper,” jokes Marlene Zahra, who runs a pastizzeria on Triq il-Għajn. “When the queue reaches my shop, I know the schools have just rung their bell.”

The tunnel, opened in 1991 as part of the Marsa-Ħamrun distributor road, sliced ten minutes off the journey from Cottonera to the airport and saved Valletta-bound coaches from the hairpin bends of Tal-Barrani. More importantly, it stitched together two sides of the harbour that had been divided since the British laid the railway line in the 19th century. Older Paolites still call it “it-tunnel tal-inglizi”, a nod to the colonial engineers who first dreamt of a subterranean passage.

Cultural ripple effects
The closure lands smack in the middle of the village festa season. On Wednesday evening, the statue of St. Anthony should be paraded through Paola’s main square amid brass-band marches and petard explosions. This year, the band club has agreed to start the procession an hour earlier to avoid peak diversion traffic. “We might even get more footfall,” says Owen Borg, president of the St. Anthony Band Club. “People who normally speed past will have to slow down and notice the decorations.”

Meanwhile, the Three Cities’ ferry service is laying on extra crossings between Bormla and Valletta, reviving a maritime commute that predates the tunnel by centuries. “It’s a taste of old Malta,” says Captain Jesmond Micallef, whose traditional dgħajsa ferries have been spruced up with new cushions and Bluetooth speakers for the occasion. “Commuters who board at 07:30 usually stare at their phones. This week they’re looking up at the bastions, taking photos, even chatting.”

Economic pinch and creative fixes
Businesses on both ends of the tunnel are bracing for impact. The Paola open-air market expects fewer vendors from Qormi and Żejtun, while Cospicua wine bars fear cancelled dinner reservations. Yet necessity is already spawning ingenuity. The Tal-Barrani McDonald’s is offering a “diversion breakfast wrap” from 05:30, and Bolt has introduced a temporary 15 % discount on rides between Fgura and Valletta. Even the Malta Chamber of SMEs has weighed in, urging shoppers to “think local” and walk or cycle to nearby shops instead of defaulting to online giants.

By Friday morning the tunnel will reopen, freshly sealed and flood-proof, and the familiar drone of engines will resume. But for four fleeting days, the islands’ most impatient commuters will be forced to slow down, look around, and perhaps remember that the journey can be as Maltese as the destination.