Over the last few days, while taking a somewhat unreliable bus service into Belfast city centre, we have stopped at a set of traffic lights beside a Department for Infrastructure billboard.

“Take the Bus, Rail or Glider… Little changes, big difference.”

It is a persuasive slogan but it is also deeply at odds with the lived experience of moving around this city.

The problem in Belfast is not a lack of messaging, it is a lack of coherence.

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This week, the PSNI warned that 17 people have already lost their lives on our roads in 2026. Underneath the headline, the public response was immediate and angry.

Many pointed out that young drivers rely on cars because there is no affordable, reliable public transport alternative. Others questioned how we can talk about sustainability and safety while offering limited viable options.

The frustration is not abstract – it’s cumulative.

Buses frequently require connections at City Hall regardless of destination. Travelling across the city can mean two services instead of one.

There is no rail link to the international airport and reaching the City Airport still involves disembarking at Sydenham and crossing a footbridge.

Congestion is treated as an inevitability rather than the predictable outcome of short-sighted design.

At the same time, drivers are urged to leave their cars at home. Parking charges rise. Road space is reallocated. Yet the alternative remains patchy.

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This is not an argument against public transport. It is an argument for a system that works.

Compare Belfast with Dublin. The DART and Luas have transformed how the city moves, while bus routes have been redesigned to improve cross-city connectivity, with further rail extensions planned.

London operates at another scale, but the principle is the same: integrated planning, multiple modes of transport and late-night services that reflect how people actually live.

In Belfast, the Glider improved certain corridors but did not fundamentally solve cross-city flow or create a rail link to our largest airport, and it did not eliminate the fact that, on occasion, travelling that half-mile of the Dublin Road can take more than half an hour.

Then there is Grand Central Station. Opened in late 2024 at a cost of approximately £340 million, it was hailed as Ireland’s largest integrated transport hub. The building is impressive. But an upgraded station does not fix the network feeding into it.

The most frustrating element is not that Belfast lacks the resources of a capital city. It is the absence of ambition.

We produce strategies and action plans. We talk about transformation. Yet routine movement across our own city remains unnecessarily complicated.

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Upcoming St Patrick’s Day celebrations will expose these cracks again. Thousands will pour into Belfast on March 17, yet no additional late-night transport will run. The explanation is funding. The service will operate to a holiday timetable. The late-night pilot applies only to Fridays and Saturdays.

It is another reminder that our infrastructure does not match our aspirations.

If we are serious about reducing road deaths, supporting businesses, encouraging sustainable travel and presenting Belfast as a confident, modern city, then tinkering will not suffice.

“Little changes, big difference,” the billboard promises.

The difficulty is that what Belfast needs may no longer be little.

© The Irish News