By Conor Coyle
December 11, 2024 at 6:00am GMT
There is no simple solution to ongoing traffic congestion in Belfast city centre, but some tough decisions could alleviate the problem in the short and long term, according to one roads expert.
Many parts of the city centre have faced gridlock in the weeks following the opening of the new £340m Grand Central station, with knock-on impacts being seen for some public transport services.
Roads expert Wesley Johnston says people have been encouraged to drive into Belfast city centre since the 1960s, and that it’s “not exactly a surprise” to see daily logjams.
The Department for Infrastructure has proposed a number of “mitigation measures” in order to ease traffic pressure in the city, but Mr Johnston says “there simply isn’t an engineering solution to this”.
“The problem is we’ve been encouraging people to drive into the city centre since the 1960s.
“There is simply more people driving into the city centre than what there is space for.
“So it’s not exactly a surprise to see the city centre filling up with cars and causing congestion.
“The solution is to have other ways of bringing people in and out of the city that doesn’t involve cars.
“The difficulty is that the alternative forms of transport that we have at the moment just aren’t good enough.”
Reduce public transport fares
Mr Johnston says the short-term solution which will help to get more people out of their cars and on to public transport is an economic one.
“Fares are too high and they are putting people off from considering public transport,” he says.
“If you look at an example of a family going into the city centre, they will pay one car park charge.
“If they use public transport, each member of the family will have to pay individual fares and that doesn’t make sense in many cases.
“If we bring the prices down, more people will use public transport. It won’t solve every problem but it will certainly help.”
Park and Rides
A medium to long-term solution which the department should focus on in the years to come is the increased provision of park and ride services.
“I think park and rides are going to be one big part of the solution to this as it solves the “last mile” issue which is where the majority of the congestion is.
“But the thing is if you look at a lot of them, they are already full early in the morning so the capacity isn’t there.
“Dundonald, for example, is full at 8.30am every morning
“They need to be bigger and we need more of them and that clearly requires investment.”
Money
As is the issue with many public services across the north, roads expert Johnston says the root of many problems is a lack of investment, and the key solution is being able to find more money.
“I think they are capable of making the right decisions but they just don’t have the money to do so,” he says.
“The only real solution is to seriously invest in public transport services, but then you have to look at how to fund that and where do you take that money from.
“In Dublin they are awash with cash and able to invest in public transport and subsidise fares.
“Unfortunately we want nice things but we can’t afford to have them at present.”
by pickneyboy3000
28 comments
If dickhead bosses weren’t arbitrarily forcing staff to come to the office to do work they can do just as well, if not better, from home, the traffic in Belfast wouldn’t be half as bad.
A ‘roads expert’ my hole. That guy just hangs out on this sub and is regurgitating what he reads here but hey at least it’s in the paper now.
The three things being money, money and… erm… money. Given the economies of running Translink right now, any investment certainly isn’t going to come from them.
They purposfully designed the road system to be bad for drivers to force them out of the city, its bad becsuse its designed to be bad by the arseholes in charge
Translink reduce their fares? Tell me another one 😂
Taking one of the family members down to Belfast on Sunday and debating getting the train or driving. On one hand train tickets are too dear but at the same time I don’t want to be fighting through traffic. Maybe it would just be wiser staying at home.
I don’t think they needed to ask a “Roads Expert” to tell you that the answer to reducing congestion is to get people to stop driving in to the City Centre, which is basically what he’s said here.
The harsh reality is that if more people (specifically people who live in Belfast for whom the train doesn’t make any sense to get in to town) used the buses then they would increase the revenue of Translink to improve services, reduce congestion which would increase speed and efficiency of the services and ultimately be better for everyone.
If I was in charge I’d ban all cars from the City Centre, with exceptions for blue badge holders or something because obviously some people will need to drive no matter what. Most people don’t though.
I’m a driver btw, although I would rather walk in to town more than any other mode of transport if I was heading in to town.
Did we need a “roads expert” to point out that better, cheaper public transport would help?
I am NOT a “roads expert” but I think it’s safe to say better infrastructure is a must, especially making better facilities for cyclists and e-scooters.
Also as Garret Hargan points out, this Belfast-centric naval gazing is standard, predictable and futile. Belfast has 83% of the students in NI, something like 60% of the civil servants (and growing despite all parties agreeing NI has too many). Traffic in Belfast was a disaster 20 years ago. It has always been one crash or breakdown away from gridlock.
Any attempt to fix it while adding more and more and more of NI’s industry, civil service and education into the place is going to be a process of constantly chasing their own tail to mitigate the disasters created by that policy.
Share the wealth; spread the traffic load out. Derry is crying out for investment.
Privatise public transport or let there be some sort of competition. Translink’s grip on this pretty much means they can dictate.
I think the article sums it up; taking the car is just so much more reliable than Translink. For me I need to get a feeder bus and then a glider to get to town. That’s 4 separate vehicles for return journey with waiting times as well for the changeovers. Just not worth it.
“I’m a roads expert” Aye dead on Conor.
The fares issue is a big one. Lack of competition (Translink being the only train and public bus services in NI) is a major factor.
On the subject of buses, a post primary school pupil isn’t eligible for a pass if they live 3 miles and under from their school. There are closer schools for all Belfast and surrounding towns but not all schools are equal and a good fit for each pupil. 3 miles is a decent enough walk but when you factor in carrying heavy bags of books, art and musical equipment, uniform policies that forbid an overcoat on cold/wet days, it’s a 6 mile round trip that I wouldn’t like to be doing daily. I have no idea how much this adds to traffic congestion but every little helps?
Has a survey ever been done, I mean a proper official full-population survey, on transport? (The census only includes one vague question on travel). I can’t recall ever being asked officially about how I travel. Obviously I’m only guessing, but perhaps there might be a shift in how people get to work as the current age 60+ population retires?
There are reports online from DfI but they don’t seem to be current (2015). The “latest news” includes an insipid solution to use public transport because they “offer discounts”. (Also I got stuck at a jarring grammatical error and couldn’t read on!).
That’s my tuppence worth!
Maybe look at what the chief executive Chris Conway has achieved during his time there, he stays out of the headlines quite well. The new station is his vanity project 😂
I think that’s a highly reductive solution. Public transport services need to improve in quality, too. There was chat a few days ago about “buy local” as if that was something we were obliged to do, just to help poor old business owners. I feel the same about our public transport. You make it something worth using, and I’ll use it. You want to spend HUGE sum of money? Then look at the airport train route, the Derry line both of which have been desired by the public for a decade, but then they spend £500 million on the Glider and the new GCS?
Additionally, there’s been a pattern, a policy, of centralising everything in Belfast too for probably about twenty years, so you’re creating reasons for people coming into the city centre without the infrastructure to support it. IMO the thing to do is a) reduce the number of people coming into the city centre and b) offer a better solution for people to bypass the city centre if they’re just passing through. The latter being a DfI and money issue.
O’Dowd couldn’t run a bath never mind a whole department. If our politics were normal and he belonged to a normal political party he’d have been sacked long ago. As it is there’ll be more chance he’ll have to answer to a council in a safe house in some rural place as has become standard practise over the years.
I don’t think our politicians are capable of making these decisions. They’re all about easy wins and easy choices because they are driven not by the motivation of making the country better but by the motivation of being re-elected.
https://x.com/CircleLineBT/status/1866428891348303898?t=gqqnxiRCBduhuLK79OrQbg&s=19
This is the biggest problem. And it’s not their fault either, for being so close to the city, the public transport links are disgraceful.
Maybe move more university campuses into the city.
Joined up bus lanes seems like it should be a slam dunk. If you are sitting in a car while buses pass you by maybe you’d reconsider
Currently, you sit in your nice warm car wth no annoying other passengers, and the bus is sat right beside you the entire way – so why would you change.
Massive investment in creating inner city living/communities.
Fixed bike lanes.
Free public transport.
Pedestrianisation of city centre
Higher parking charges/congestion charges
Money? They’ve just spaffed £300m on a white elephant train station, which makes it MORE difficult to travel to stations beyond GCS inside Belfast.
While we need more money, what we actually need is more accountability. A lot of folk are raking in £100k+ salaries to take the decisions and fucking it up every single time, without any repercussions
And mandatory school kids in buses!!
£30 flat fee for single occupancy vehicles in the city centre, ANPR cameras on all entrances with the fees added to your car tax each year if you don’t pay. The problem would be permanently sorted within a week, yes it would be piss-boilingly annoying but you came to me with a problem so I came up with a solution!
Unless the government massively subsidises public transport, it will NEVER get any better. People will gladly pay extra for parking as it’s still cheaper than the train plus you don’t have you put up with other people. There’s no way on this earth should it be the guts of £30 for two returns from Ballymena to Belfast.
Just worth remembering that Translink’s parent company own a lot of car parking spaces in the city centre.
Metro family and friends ticket is £10 for 2 adults 4 children. That’s not individual tickets per person.
Park and rides should be operating weekends in December.
Park and rides should be massively expanded my local one is always full during the day
Park and ride is a load of balls in so many cases to make it unusable anyway even when it is implemented. There’s a bus centre in my town, the park and ride is 2 and a half miles outside of the town is so therefore were the people that would want to use the service would be.
The times the busses arrive at the park and ride don’t align with busses to or from the town so even if I get a park and ride service I have to get a bus to the park and ride then wait anywhere up to 45 minutes for the bus from the park and ride. Same with getting back, I arrive at the park and ride then have another 45 minute wait for a bus or walk the two and a half miles with my son.
By the time I pay the ticket prices then I’ve easily just spent triple what the journey would have cost me by car and taken 4-5x as long. Why would I bother?
Promote WFH. Fix Yorkgate interchange. Two railway tracks across Lagan into town. Half the number of entrances on to the Westlink – retain current exits.
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