Transport & Environment
As well as the fact that more buses terminate in Belfast than anywhere else in Northern Ireland, the M1, M2 (M5), M3, major A roads and rail links all terminate in Belfast, providing access from all across the province; from the north-west, from Armagh and from north Down to name but a few. Of course there’s also the Port of Belfast, City Airport and a direct bus service from the International Airport terminating at Belfast for away fans and those fans who travel home for events.
The Maze was a good place to put a prison precisely because it is rural and isolated, 3km from the nearest city (Lisburn). Access to the stadium will be via the only road – the M1 motorway, which can be congested enough sometimes, even before we even consider the extra traffic a major event will bring. The extra road development is likely to cost as much as £30 million, on top of the £100 million already earmarked for the development of the Maze itself.
Even if public transport is arranged to the Maze, it cannot get anywhere near 35,000 people to a single site outside Belfast, let alone the 47,000 capacity of the ground for GAA matches. With trains running 2-3km away, a fleet of buses would be necessary to take fans to the stadium site itself. Add these to the thousands trying to get there in cars and the result is inevitably going to be mass congestion. When there’s that much hassle, how many people will give public transport a miss and just go in their car anyway? Of course that means they’ll be paying to park as well.
Even in the event that public transport used to capacity, extra road journeys would be made by people trying to get to the Maze. That in itself would be bad enough for the environment, but the limited facilities at the Maze compared to a city centre location will mean people will not go there for the day and will all be arriving at once in the last hour or so before the event. Unlike with a stadium in Belfast, nobody will be able to walk there, and fewer people will be able to get there by train or bus. Those extra cars will create extra congestion which will create extra emissions. How does this reconcile with government plans to combat climate change exactly?