Transportation systems in the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland, include road, air, rail, and sea. It is still a relatively car-dependent city; however, it is also served by a comprehensive rail and bus network. Belfast also ran electric trams prior to 1954. The city has two major airports, and the Port of Belfast is the busiest ferry port on the island of Ireland.
History
In the Victorian city of Belfast, transport consisted of horse-drawn carts on cobbled streets. Some of these streets in the Cathedral Quarter are still cobbled. As the city expanded rapidly during the Industrial Revolution, the need grew for public transport to carry workers in and out of the city. The Belfast Street Tramways Company replaced carts with horse-drawn trams and the Cavehill and Whitewell Tramway company ran a steam tramway from the outlying villages of Whitewell and Glengormley into Belfast. Belfast Zoo was created in 1934 from Bellevue Gardens, a playground and pleasure gardens at the end of the Cavehill line. In 1905, the Belfast Corporation took over and electrified the city's tram network. The trams were partially replaced by trolleybuses from 1938, and finally replaced by buses in 1954.
Recent developments have been proposed in the Belfast Metropolitan Transport Plan, launched by the Minister for Regional Development in November 2004. It aimed to set a new direction for transport in the city following decades of under-investment.
City layout
Belfast remains a divided city. There are 14 neighborhoods in the inner-city of Belfast some of which are divided by peace lines. These walls were erected by the British Army, after August 1969, at the beginning of the Troubles. They were built in an effort to deal with the nightly rioting in the city at the time, and to stop intimidation and population flight. There was very little community consultation throughout this process.
Since the 1970s, the inner city numbers have dropped and the Greater Belfast suburb population has grown. As with many cities, Belfast's inner city is currently characterised by the elderly, students and single young people, while families tend to live on the periphery. Socio-economic areas radiate out from the Central Business District, with a pronounced wedge of affluence extending out the Malone Road to the south. An area of greater deprivation extends to the west of the city. In fact the areas around the Falls and Shankill Roads are the most deprived wards in Northern Ireland.
Routes
Some important arterial routes into Belfast include: York Street/York Road/Shore Road Antrim Road Oldpark Road Crumlin Road Shankill Road/Woodvale Road/Ballygomartin Road Divis Street/Falls Road/Glen Road Grosvenor Road/Springfield Road Andersonstown Road/Stewartstown Road Donegall Road Lisburn Road University Road/Malone Road Ormeau Road Ravenhill Road Woodstock Link/Woodstock Road/Cregagh Road Castlereagh Street/Castlereagh Road Albertbridge Road Newtownards Road/Upper Newtownards Road Holywood Road
Westlink
The most significant road scheme in Belfast for some years began early in 2006, with the upgrading of two junctions along the Westlink dual carriageway to grade separated standard. The Westlink, a dual carriageway skirting the western edge of the City Centre, connects all three Belfast motorways and has suffered from chronic congestion for some years. The work will cost £103.9 million and is scheduled for completion in 2009. Some commentators have argued that this may simply create a new bottleneck at the at-grade York Street intersection until that too is converted to a fully free-flowing grade separated junction, which in 2007 was expected to take place between 2011 and 2016.
Cycling
The Lagan and Lough Cycle Way, part of Route 9 of the National Cycle Network, runs through the city centre along the Laganside promenade and linking north to Jordanstown through the docks and along the lough shore and south-west to Lisburn along the Lagan towpath.
Cars and buses
In the nineteenth century due to suburbanization omnibuses became in to use and in 1869 were recorded running hourly on the Malone Road, Lisburn Road, Antrim Road, County Down Road to Sydenham hourly. Belfast is a now a relatively car-dependent city, by European standards, with an extensive road network including the ten lane M2 motorway. A recent survey of how people travel in Northern Ireland showed that people in Belfast made 77% of all journeys by car, 11% by public transport and 6% on foot. It also showed that Belfast has 0.70 cars per household compared to figures of 1.18 in the East and 1.14 in the West of Northern Ireland.