New road completes Belfast-Dublin route
AFTER decades of delay on the Belfast to Dublin road, the last bottleneck will be removed today with the opening of the Newry Bypass.
The completion of the 150 million seven-mile route makes it now possible to travel by dual carriageway or motorway the entire distance from Glarryford in Co Antrim to a point several miles west of Cork.
Various sections of four-lane highway – from Ballymena to Belfast to Dublin to Cork to Ballincollig –now combine to stretch for more than 300 miles (around 500km), meaning that for the first time since cars arrived in Ireland, motorists are able to make a journey of almost continental duration on fast roads.
The opening of the Newry road slashes travel times from Belfast to Dublin to only 90 minutes, making access to Dublin Airport particularly easy.
And multi-billion improvements to Dublin's orbital M50 motorway mean that it is possible to connect quickly from the Belfast-Dublin motorway to the recently completed motorway to Cork.
Travelling within speed limits, the Belfast to Cork journey should now take around four hours before stoppages.
The Newry bypass road has been built to near-motorway standard, but is in fact legally designated as a dual carriageway which allows tractors and other slower moving traffic to use it.
The road replaces the 1996 bypass of the border city, which was built as a single carriageway with four roundabouts, but quickly proved inadequate for soaring traffic levels.
The completion has been warmly welcomed by politicians on both sides of the border and from within the two communities.
Ulster Unionist Party deputy leader Danny Kennedy said: "After many years of campaigning for the development of this section of road, I am delighted to see it officially opened. The conclusion of this scheme represents a red letter day for Newry and the surrounding area.”
Mr Kennedy, who is a local assembly member, added: “We now have a new stretch of carriageway that will make a substantial difference to the local area.”
The road also will have major safety benefits, replacing the last single carriageway section of the A1 between Sprucefield and the border.
Scores of people have died on the A1 in recent decades, making it one of the most dangerous roads in Northern Ireland.
Motorways and dual carriageways, however, have up to seven times fewer fatalities per mile travelled than single carriageway roads.
The road stretches from Beech Hill, north of Newry, to Cloghogue, south of the city, which was a longstanding congestion point during the Troubles because traffic had to stop there at an Army base checkpoint.
The bypass connects two existing dual carriageway sections on the A1, including on the southern side the Newry to Dundalk A1/N1 road which opened in late 2007.
North of the new road, four multi-million junctions opened last year on the A1 at Hillsborough, Dromore, Banbridge and Loughbrickland.
Four further junctions are planned on the A1 route, as part of a total investment of around 250m.
The improvements will help raise the standard of the Belfast-Dublin road north of the border, which for decades was of higher quality than the southern sections but fell behind when the Republic completed a motorway from Dublin Port to the border.
The Sinn Fein Transport Minister Conor Murphy, who is also the local MP, will unveil the road this morning in the vicinity of the new viaduct crossing the Tandragee Road.
See Morning View, page 20
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Monday 28 May 2012
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