A road traffic expert has said that there is “no quick fix” to Belfast’s ongoing traffic congestion after yet another evening of severe gridlock at rush hour.
Wesley Johnston, who researches road plans and infrastructure, believes there is no easy solution to avoid the long queues and delays unless the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) overhauls Northern Ireland’s entire roads system.
In a statement, DfI said Thursday night’s congestion was caused by several road traffic collisions on busy roads in and out of the city, causing a knock-on effect for commuters, as well as high-profile events such as Disney On Ice at the SSE Arena.
Photographs and video from various public cameras around the city centre showed long queues of gridlocked traffic from around 5pm, with some travellers claiming they spent over two hours attempting to get home.
“Yesterday evening, Belfast city centre was particularly busy with pre-Christmas visitors,” DfI said.
“While this traffic is typical of this time of year, unfortunately a number of incidents and events caused increased traffic congestion across the city.
“These included a five-car collision on the M2 and a number of incidents on the M1 country-bound, including a four-car collision.
“These all led to a backup of traffic across the city while recovery operations took place, and delays were further exacerbated by more cars travelling to the city to attend Disney on Ice at the SSE arena.”
A spokesperson for the DfI added that the department is continuing to work with partners to “undertake a range of mitigation measures to help ease traffic congestion in Belfast city centre”.
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Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, Mr Johnston who runs the website Northern Ireland Roads, reiterated similar comments to the department and said: “Traffic is always bad in the city centre coming up to Christmas, as we all know, and on Thursday night what made it worse was we had several crashes across spots. Our road network is very small and if any one of the major areas is affected, then it doesn’t take long for traffic to back up,” he said.
“It’s really that the network is functioning at capacity. It basically absorbs what is on it, so anything at all really delays it up.”
Mr Johnston also said the idea that Belfast’s roads are not fit for modern purposes has two solutions: to knock down several buildings to create more roads, or create more ways for people to use public transport.
“But the first option isn’t, as we’ve seen the effect it’s had in America — you end up with cities where there are nothing but roads. Getting people onto public transport is the solution, but we don’t do that well.
“The reason for that is that public transport is still relatively expensive, and it’s still inconvenient for a large percentage of the population, particularly those within the suburbs and women who don’t feel safe on it at night.
“It’s not a matter of just telling people to get the bus; we need to make that more attractive and easier,” he added.
“There is no quick fix. The pausing of roadworks will help, but the only solution really is a period of extended investment in road traffic networks and public transport.
“Northern Ireland actually has a great computerised traffic control system, and if they switched it off we’d see the effect, but it cannot eliminate the congestion.”
As for advice on how to avoid congestion and traffic, Mr Johnston unfortunately said again there is no easy solution.
“You would need to appeal to people to use public transport or alert their journey times, which many people simply can’t. But fundamentally, it’s a long-term issue that is required by Stormont — it’s not better roads, it’s better use of them.”