Editorial: ​Upgrading the dangerous A1 road in stages is better than not at all

A new Stormont delivery unit will look at the failure to deliver the York Street flyover interchange, which was first commissioned in 2007.

This is a welcome development on a crucial but inexplicably delayed road project for Northern Ireland’s capital city, that facilitates traffic going east, west, north and south. Not only was it commissioned back in 2007, the DUP in 2017 got a financial commitment to deliver the scheme, yet seven years later there are doubts over whether it will be delivered at all. ​

The interchange is one of a number of road upgrade plans including the dangerous A5 single carriageway which runs of the western spine of Northern Ireland.

Another dangerous road in the province that urgently needs improved is the A1 dual carriageway in Co Down. Ironically, this road is currently suffering because it was one of the first major routes to be upgraded from single carriageway, beginning in the 1960s. It forms part of the main Belfast to Dublin road but now has four-lane sections that are hopelessly ill suited to fast moving intercity traffic, because they have a central reservation with gap junctions.

This means that vehicles can turn right in the face of oncoming traffic either to join the road or to leave it.

Such dual carriageways are safer than single carriageways, because the most dangerous manoeuvre on the road – overtaking in the face of oncoming traffic – is eliminated. But they are far more dangerous than motorways or so-called expressway dual carriageways that have no gaps in the middle.

The A1 is all the more dangerous now that it is connected to motorways at both the Belfast end of the road and at the border, confusing traffic into thinking it is on a safer road than it is. It would be much better to upgrade the road in one go, but financial reasons mean that it might now be done in sections. That is much better than it not being upgraded at all.