TEST DRIVE: WESTLINK OPENS
IT didn't quite make sense this morning driving along the Westlink - where were the queues?
It was like Wimbledon fortnight without so much as a drop of rain to stop play.
After 25 years of congestion, since the road opened in March 1983, regular users have become subconsciously used to delays.
Even in the middle of the night, motorists using the Westlink could get stopped by any one of the three traffic lights along the route.
And travelling southbound on a weekday, the only imponderable was whether the queues would stretch from Broadway to Clifton Street, or merely to Divis Street.
Moving
But that all changed at 6am today. Driving from the northern end of the route, at York Street near Belfast docks, the cars just kept moving - through the underpass at Grosvenor Road, past that nuisance of a junction at Roden Street (now closed), and now sweeping through the newly-opened underpass at Broadway.
Broadway is now the nearest thing Northern Ireland has to a road tunnel, some 140 metres long.
Temporary 30mph speed restrictions remain in place, and it will be some months before motorists experience the advantages of a third lane in each direction - final touches that will make driving along the Westlink/M1 less cluttered and restrained.
But the main benefits have now been achieved - there is not a single obstacle for 40 miles, from York Street to the end of the M1 at Dungannon. Soon the four-mile stretch from Divis Street to Black's Road will have three lanes each way, crossing over the new bridges at Stockman's Lane.
Implications
The upgrade has implications for almost everyone who has a car in Northern Ireland - someone living in Fermanagh and using Belfast City Airport will benefit. The opening of the second underpass will also make things easier for traffic travelling through Broadway junction, for example between the City and Royal Victoria hospitals.
Such traffic no longer clashes with all that Westlink through-traffic, and large queues backing on to roads such as the Boucher Road should diminish.
At a stroke, delays on or around Ulster's busiest route have been consigned to history - or have they?
The sun was shining brightly after today's early opening, but there were clouds visible.
Westlink traffic is likely to increase after this 104m upgrade, putting pressure on the York Street junction with the M2 and M3.
Benefits
The benefits of the upgrade will be much diminished if you have to queue through three or four phases of traffic lights just to get on to it.
And the closure of northbound access at Grosvenor Road means that traffic travelling between Belfast city centre and the M2 will crowd through the Divis Street junction to get to the Westlink.
It is unclear whether the various access or exit lanes at that junction will properly handle the increase.
Much of the blame for Westlink congestion lies with the lamentable failure to build a proper outer ring road to the south and east of Belfast.
This means that traffic travelling from, say, Bangor to Dublin either uses the Westlink, or has to use alternatives such as the dangerous, twisting Hillhall Road.
Vehicles
Likewise, the lack of a good north-south road through Nutt's Corner, past Belfast International Airport, means vehicles travelling from Ballymena to Banbridge might as well use the M2, Westlink and M1.
It is madness for such motorists to be sucked into Belfast, yet the improvement of the Westlink (without improvements to parallel routes) has actually made that more likely. This will increase the strain on key arterials such as the Sydenham Bypass.
It is all in sorry contrast to the forward thinking that marked roads policy in Northern Ireland decades ago.
Consider the M2 past Fortwilliam - a superb stretch of motorway that has gradually matured to meet its purpose. When it opened in 1973, this road seemed a white elephant - far too big, with five lanes in each direction.
Now it is good thing it wasn't built any narrower, and the road should easily see in its half century within capacity.
The Westlink, built a decade later, should have had flyover junctions and three lanes each way from its opening.
The Troubles was partly to blame, if not largely so, diverting roads money elsewhere.
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Weather for Belfast
Monday 28 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 12 C to 25 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 12 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 7 mph
Wind direction: South west
