Newsroom
Saturday morning's traffic nightmare on the Nicosia-Limassol motorway near the new bridge can only be described as pure chaos: shouting, honking, and seemingly endless hours of idling. The culprit? Road works designed to fix a "serious issue" on the highway. And who could’ve predicted such a scene? Apparently, no one—except, perhaps, the Public Works Department.
According to Eleftherios Eleftheriou, Director of the Public Works Department, the decision to close the lanes was made in cooperation with the Police and based on a dire safety concern. Apparently, some highway joints were in need of replacement after a serious accident had occurred previously. In case you're wondering, the specifics of the work took about 30 hours to complete.
But why on earth did this all have to happen on a Saturday morning, you ask? Eleftheriou was quick to justify the timing, offering a masterful explanation by saying that it was the best option they had. And that they couldn't start at night, because it would risk extending the work into Monday, when people would be heading to work.
Eleftheriou admitted that they didn't expect such high volumes of cars at that time. Yes, the roadworks turned out to be a little more disruptive than anticipated—imagine that. Still, as he emphasized, these were "necessary" works, and nothing could have been done to avoid this mass inconvenience.
Perhaps the most telling comment from Eleftheriou? “The work couldn't be performed at any other time.” So, Saturday it was. After all, what could go wrong with choosing a weekend when everyone’s commuting and trying to get somewhere fast?
In the end, it seems that the public's suffering was a small price to pay for much-needed safety measures. But for anyone stuck in the hours of traffic, the "safety-first" rationale might have sounded more like an ironic joke than a valid explanation.
