Congestion latest: Boyne Bridge closure 'having marked impact' on Belfast taxi waits as firm manager calls for bus lanes to be opened up
The closure of the Boyne Bridge in Belfast has had a “marked and significant impact” on the city’s taxis.
That is according to Stephen Anton of taxi giant FonaCAB, who has called on the Department for Infrastructure to open the city’s bus lanes up to most – but not all – taxis in order to alleviate the problem.
There are rowing complaints about congestion in Belfast city centre, with around 20 sets of roadworks dotted around the city – including three in the city centre (Great Victoria Street, Ulster University, and the Westlink/Grosvenor Road), and a major resurfacing scheme on the Sydenham Bypass in the east.
Then, as of October 12, the Boyne Bridge in the south-west of the city centre was shut.
The bridge, over which runs Durham Street, is slated to be dismantled by Translink, and the road could be shut for up to a year.
It is hard to pinpoint which set of roadworks is having the greatest impact, but yesterday transport expert Wesley Johnston told the News Letter there had been a “significant” spike in traffic problems in the city since the bridge was closed.
Now Mr Anton, communications manager for FonaCAB, has said of the Durham Street closure: “It has had a marked and substantial decrease in the number of city centre bookings we've completed, and the jobs we are completing are taking longer to complete.
"As such, other customers are perhaps being denied the opportunity to get a taxi because drivers are able to complete fewer jobs per hour.
"It means journeys with passengers on are potentially more expensive 'cause the journey takes longer.
"Whenever you have taxi companies – and we're not the only one – getting impacted, whenever you have social media being full of everybody from the retail sector to the hospitality complaining about not being able to get their customers into their premises, whenever you have Translink public transport saying about they're suffering delays in the city centre: all these things can't just be a coincidence.
"There's been other days when it's been cold. There's been other days when it's been dark. What has changed fundamentally in this last week that's caused everybody now to have an issue? And the only thing that's changed fundementally in this last week has been the closure of Durham Street.
"In my opinion I think we need to do something to get over this hump between now and Christmas.
"Short term, I can only speak for the taxi industry, I think our feeling there is that allowing Class A taxis into bus lanes between now and Christmas we think is a sensible move – one which when it was done before didn't have any impact on the movement of public transport."
Class A taxis are ones with signs on the roof and meters on display; they make up about 5,300 of Northen Ireland’s 7,000 or so taxis, he said.
He would have concerns with Class C taxis (ones not bearing signs) using the lanes because they just look like ordinary cars – and then all road users will think the lanes are open to them.
Currently the Department for Infrastructure plans to allow both into “certain bus lanes in the vicinity of the works”.