Ben Lowry: Misleading claims of a transport infrastructure bias west of the Bann

But there has been some highly misleading commentary about transport infrastructure west of the Bann, implying that the region is discriminated against.

These accusations typically do not take account of population size or population density or traffic levels on particular stretches of single carriageway road that are candidates for upgrade to dual carriageway.

Overwhelmingly, the most dangerous and congested such stretches of road, the most urgent upgrades, have been east of the Bann.

I say that as someone who strongly supports the upgrade of both the A5 and the A6 roads, for strategic and symbolic purposes (now that four more dangerous and urgent road stretches in the Province have been or are being, upgraded – A1, 4, 6 and 26).

Similarly, there is misleading talk about the Belfast to Londonderry rail line.

If anyone can point me to anywhere in Europe that has a major, fast and high frequency rail line between cities of 500,000 and 100,000 people, around 75 miles apart (that are not part of a longer route between bigger cities) please do.

I know cities in France of similar size and proximity to Belfast and Londonderry that are badly linked by train, or not at all, despite the fact that France has far better transport infrastructure than us.

• Ben Lowry (@BenLowry2) is News Letter deputy editor

Ben Lowry: What I said in my address to the Sinn Fein conference on Irish unity

Ben Lowry: Trump Twitter rant is the latest grotesquerie