People urged to work at home to avoid congestion

Grosvenor Road

Road users are now unable to turn left from Great Victoria Street on to the Grosvenor Road.

Mr Woods explained this was a "pedestrian safety" issue as the department had to remodel the junction "to cope" with the numbers of pedestrians leaving Belfast Grand Central Station.

He noted it was under "close" review and that there were other routes onto the Westlink.

Dublin Road

When asked why the lanes on the Dublin Road were reduced from four to one, Mr Woods said some of the measures had been in place for a long period of time.

He said the cycle lane was introduced at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic to create "safe cycle routes for people".

Mr Woods added that an additional bus lane was added to the road so that if there was congestion, buses could still travel along Great Victoria Street and through Shaftesbury Square.

There is now parking, a cycle lane, bus lane and a lane for general traffic.

Road engineering measures, such as:

Public transport interventions, including:

Providing the public with information on traffic conditions through:

At peak busy times, such as the evening rush hour, Mr Woods said there was 10-15% of over capacity on the road network.

"The best advice I can give is to think carefully about our journey choices, if we can take the train or bus, or walk or cycle into Belfast city centre," he said.

"If we do need to drive, and many people do for all sorts of reasons, try and avoid travelling at peak times or stagger our journeys because if there are fewer vehicles on the road the traffic will flow better.

"The other main thing is that if we are driving please don't block junctions or yellow boxes because they are there for a reason."

Mr Woods said a car share initiative could be part of transport policy in the future but it would not solve the current traffic congestion issues.