WHAT’S GOING ON WITH THE TRAFFIC IN BELFAST?
As we sit in tailbacks and traffic jams, it’s the one question everyone wants answered! Here Local Women columnist, civil engineer and transport planner Karen McShane, discusses what is being done to improve the situation.
In December Belfast City Centre experienced its highest levels of congestion within the city and the media picked up on the difficulties that motorists had in the festive period.
Despite attending a lot of events this month, I want to consider how traffic levels have returned to more normal levels, how they have impacted upon the increased delays, and I will outline what choices the Department has to improve capacity for next year by considering what positive action they have taken.
The Department for Infrastructure (DFI) is responsible for the majority of our highway network unlike other parts of these islands where local councils have a larger role to play. Approximately every year DFI release a report on the levels of traffic on a number of identified routes in and around Northern Ireland. An examination of this report shows that the M1 at Belfast carried 91,300 vehicles in 2018. The last published year was 2023 and it shows the flow has again reached 91,390 vehicles as an annual average daily traffic flow indicating that the flow from the west had reached pre-covid levels.
Looking at the other side of the city in 2018 the M2/M15 carried 101,140 vehicles at Fortwilliam and looking at other routes such as the Upper Newtownards Road at 31,140 and Saintfield Road at 30,000 vehicles this gives us a total of 253,850 vehicles either in or out of the city in an average day. It is not any surprise that this level of traffic flow leads to congestion on our narrow city centre streets. DFI acknowledge that a portion of this flow does not enter the city centre, but we have not included the Bangor Road or Sydenham Bypass or many other routes in this calculation. DFI has reported that a portion of traffic travelling through the city centre does not have business there and we can only ascertain that this traffic is trying to avoid the city.
Karen McShane on BBC Newsline
Gelda Burrows, Karen McShane, Helen Beggs at Plant and Civil Engineer Awards
Karen McShane Ltd
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Congestion on the likes of the Westlink.
DFI has a finite budget and have a much wider remit than just traffic.
The department has been proactive in encouraging us to move to alternative modes of travel and pre-Christmas Translink had reported that they had carried an extra 400,000 passengers last year, showing that a lot of people did take advice and took a modal shift. Some of these services did get stuck in the congestion and more work needs to be undertaken to relieve traffic flow in Belfast city centre and increase road network capacity for motorists to avoid this happening next year. DFI can consider several key methods which can be considered as carrots and sticks. So far, a lot of carrots or incentives, have been used trying to encourage us to change but other cities have considered sticks which are methods that motorists will not warm to. This month I will consider the Carrots.
DFI are currently optimising the traffic management systems. They have implemented advanced traffic signal control systems that adapt in real-time to traffic conditions, optimising flow and reducing delays. However, at the time of writing places like Great Victoria Street were still operating on a plan, meaning that the signal detectors were not changing to pick up approaching traffic. I tested this at 4:45am this morning and had to wait for the cycle of lights to go around before I got a green light, despite the other routes having no vehicles. So, there is more work to do here. Other incentives involve the use of intelligent transport systems (ITS) to provide real-time information to drivers about traffic conditions, road closures, and alternative routes. We have these on the Westlink and some of this work was initially funded by the Odyssey project and Sainsbury’s at Sprucefield as part of a planning condition to develop these two sites many years ago. The system has been improved since then, but any future expansion is dependent on DFI receiving more funding and a need to prioritise this technology.
Pre-Christmas Translink did improve public transport and introduced additional nighttime services which were funded from a variety of different pots. I used several of these and it was standing room only, so the evidence does suggest that if people have a genuine choice they will use these services. How do we get funding to endure these are extended throughout the year rather than just on the run up to Christmas? Enhancing public transport options to reduce the number of vehicles on the road can include increasing the frequency and reliability of buses and expanding the glider network. There is also an online discussion on reinvigorating the “Circle Line” as part of the All-Island Strategic Rail Review. Again, this is a great idea and opens up the network to more users but needs to get funded.
As part of the alternative methodology DFI have promoted park-and-ride facilities to encourage commuters to leave their cars outside the city centre. These facilities are well used and again this shows that as a carrot this works.
DFI have promoted active travel infrastructure as a means of reaching our climate change targets. They have invested in cycling and walking infrastructure to encourage alternative modes of transport. This includes dedicated bike lanes and pedestrian zones and have implemented the Belfast bike-sharing schemes to increase the uptake of cycling. If we do not provide the safe infrastructure for active travel modes then people will not use it. So as a carrot this is fine in theory that we have to continue to invest in to improve the network for these travel modes.
As part of the investment DFI have considered road expansions and upgrades by identifying and expanding bottleneck areas in the road network to improve capacity. These small ideas of sweating the network allow DFI to squeeze out the additional traffic capacity but can only do so much and this alone does not solve the problem. DFI have upgraded existing roads to accommodate more traffic, potentially including additional lanes or dedicated bus lanes in an attempt to guarantee the bus journey time. Without this guarantee inevitably bus services get cancelled as the bus has not reached its new departure position. So DFI and operators have given us the carrots, is this enough to get us to change?
Next month I will continue this debate with some of the Sticks that the Department could consider using if we do not take on board the carrots and try and start to change our own travel habits.
Happy New Year.
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