A5 road upgrade only partly improves safety, official says

Some 47 people have been killed on the A5 since 2007

Improvements to the existing A5 road between Londonderry and Aughnacloy would only partly improve road safety, Stormont officials have said.

A public inquiry into the road heard providing more overtaking lanes on the route mean would mean accident blackspots still remain.

It is examining a £1.6bn scheme for a new 53 mile (85km) dual carriageway.

The project was first approved in 2007 but has been delayed by legal challenges.

Since then, 47 people have been killed in accidents on the A5.

Alternatives sought

Commissioners from the Planning Appeals Commission asked the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) to carry out a study of alternatives to the A5 Western Transport Corridor (A5WTC) dual carriageway project.

These would be significantly cheaper, result in lower greenhouse gas emissions in construction and operation, and be less obtrusive on the landscape.

Alternative One would involve new bypasses of Omagh and Strabane, with additional 2+1 overtaking lanes built on the existing route.

These 2+1 overtaking roads allow two lanes in one direction and one lane in the other, meaning vehicles are able to overtake slower moving traffic.

Alternative Two would include bypasses and an additional 2+1 lane along the proposed route of the A5WTC between New Buildings and Victoria Bridge.

The department said the alternatives would only partly meet the objectives of the scheme to improve road safety, reduce journey times, improve north/south links, and increase overtaking opportunities.

Significant lengths of the existing A5, approximately 62% for Alternative One and approximately 46% for Alternative 2, would also be retained in its current state.

Properties demolished

The inquiry was told that 14,000 vehicles use the road daily between Ballygawley and Omagh each day which is over capacity.

There are more than 1,370 side accesses along the existing A5, including private and field accesses.

The current 2+1 overtaking lanes also do not meet modern road standards.

Peter Edwards, a technical adviser to the A5 Western Transport Corridor project, said "the department's objectives would not be properly achieved" with the alternative schemes.

"We would still have a high risk of accidents, would still have a large volume of traffic. All these issues would still exist," he told the inquiry.

"There are some areas where the status quo would be maintained - Moylagh and Garvaghy and Ballymacilroy Hill - the measures that we would do there are limited.

"The potential accident blackspots remain."

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Widening the existing carriageway would also mean more properties would have to be demolished.

A new dual carriageway would require the demolition of eight properties.

It is anticipated that Alternative One would result in 11 properties requiring demolition, whereas Alternative Two would require an estimated 15 properties to be demolished.

'Little road improvements' since 2007

The Alternative A5 Alliance (AA5A), a group formed in 2009 by farmers and residents in County Tyrone to oppose the new off-line dual carriageway, believes the alternatives are "more proportionate".

The group argues that "these should have been fully appraised and costed".

A statement from the group said: "The improvement and upgrade of the existing A5 has long been needed and the AA5A has consistently proposed how this might be done to secure road safety or other benefits in a proportionate and effective away.

"Unfortunately, a consequence of the promotion of the off-line dual carriageway scheme from 2007 onwards has been that the plans that were in hand to upgrade the existing A5 were shelved, so that there has been little upgrade or improvement to the road since then."

Paul Lulhan, a traffic planning consultant acting for the AA5A, told the inquiry that the alternatives provided "targeted improvements" which addressed the major congestion issues and road safety blackspots.

Mr Lulhan also criticised the department for the lack of traffic modelling which made it difficult to make comparisons between the alternatives and the proposed A5WTC scheme.

The inquiry will conclude on Friday when the planning appeals commissioners are expected to indicate how long they will need to make their recommendations to the Department for Infrastructure.