Road rage over 10-mile tailbacks

Drivers cross the Grosvenor Road bridge which was opened last year

The £104m M1/Westlink project may be ahead of schedule, but angry motorists found themselves hours behind.

On Monday, Belfast commuters complained of a 10-mile tailback from the Westlink to Sprucefield junction in Lisburn.

It was described as one of the worst traffic jams anyone could remember and the Department of Regional Development admitted it did not know why.

Commuters' journey times doubled to an hour on a clear morning when there were no accidents on the road.

One man said it had taken him one hour and 16 minutes to cover the 11 mile stretch from Sprucefield to Belfast.

A woman said it had taken her two-and-a-half hours travelling from Lurgan.

People saw commuters banging their steering wheels in frustration as they sat in the traffic jam.

Regional Development Minister Conor Murphy was himself a victim of a "two-hour" traffic jam, he said.

"I sat for two hours coming into Belfast myself, so I am very much aware of the frustration and the difficulties of getting in and out of the city and congestion," he told an assembly debate on transport on Monday.

Work on the £104m roads upgrade is due to finish in the spring of 2009.

There will be a third lane in both directions, as well as two new underpasses and roundabouts and traffic lights will be removed.

But there are concerns that, despite an extra lane, traffic problems are caused by the sheer number of cars using the road into the city.

Mr Murphy said: "We have park and ride facilities and we are developing others around the city and improving the quality bus corridors as well.

"I do think we need to manage both a carrot approach - trying to have as good public transport as we possibly can - and also a stick approach which is trying to discourage car users."

He said continued congestion, despite millions being spent on Northern Ireland's roads, posed a bigger question about how much should be spent on dealing with getting cars into and out of cities as opposed to other measures to reduce the number of cars.

A DRD spokeswoman said: "Obviously the scheme was not designed for unrestrained demand."

She said that the department was not aware of any exceptional circumstances that contributed to Monday's long delays but she noted there had been exceptionally heavy traffic on the roads.

The M1/Westlink is still a construction site, she said. Motorists could consider taking the train, using the park and ride system or staggering journey times.