| Streets
Ahead Enabling Measures Phase 2 - Belfast |
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Belfast is currently undertaking a long-term scheme to redirect general traffic flows out of Belfast city centre, in order to permit a greater role for buses, rapid transit, pedestrians and cycling. The work is being carried out in six phases, of which this scheme is the fourth:
At the time of writing (Jan 2012) the east-west
routes around City Hall are used by high volumes
of traffic attempting to pass through the central
area of the city to destinations outside the
central area. According
to Stephen Pollock from Roads Service, 16,000
vehicles per day pass behind City Hall, and 14,000
in front of it. Of these 60% has no destination in
the city centre. DRD feel that this traffic is inappropriate in
such a key location, and eventually wish to remove
it. The plan is to divert all this traffic onto a
more southerly route (phase 5 of the six phases
above). Once done, this will allow the streets
around City Hall to be devoted almost entirely to
public transport. A key aspect of the plan is to remove all traffic
(except Rapid Transit) off Donegall Square North
and Donegall Place and turn the entire area in
front of City Hall into an iconic pedestrianised
public square. All of these proposals are shown in
this DRD map, which is correct as of 2011:  DRD Image from here. Updates 3 Mar 2012: The Department of Social Development issued a press release a fortnight ago, announcing that McAdam Design has been awarded a £0.9m contract to develop a concept design for this scheme, ie for developing the iconic public square in front of City Hall. The preferred design is to be submitted "by 2013". It suggests that the flow of buses shown on the map above may not be set in stone, when it says: "One of the exciting opportunities includes getting a better balance between buses and pedestrians in the area, which ultimately could lead to the removal of buses from around the city hall or alternatively not having them continually parked in the area but simply dropping passengers off and collecting them." |