Northern Ireland Roads

Yesterday (Friday late afternoon 3rd January 2014) saw an horrific fatal accident involving 3 cars on the A5 between Sion Mills and Newtownstewart.
i join with all those who send deep sympathy to the family of the gentleman who was tragically killed yesterday and to the injured and their families. I was driving north past that spot at that very time the day before, and the traffic was solid in both directions, but the traffic going north on this road at that time on a Friday has to be seen to be believed. Two thirds of it turns off at Strabane for Donegal, if not earlier to go to south Donegal via Clady. The road from Strabane south to Ballygawley is desperately needed, whereas the road from Strabane to Derry is at present of secondary importance, but as soon as the upgrade is completed to Balllygawley, the inevitable increase of traffic from Dublin to Derry (at present driving via Belfast as the preferred choice of route due to the total inadequacy of the A5), it too will become very dangerous if not completed at the same time. As it is the more direct route and shorter, the need for upgrading the A6 will be of lesser importance from a safety aspect, but of course should also have had the bottlenecks upgraded years ago. How could the secretary of the anti-A5 Alliance have written that there is so little traffic that it doesn’t justify building a new road? He doesn’t drive, so was not qualified to comment in my opinion. We are all of us more at risk than need be until the new A5 is ready – condemned to increased numbers of accidents and fatalities while we wait much longer than was planned for a road which was promised and longed for since the closing of the GNRailway in 1965, which up to the bitter end had daily, at least, goods trains with up to 150 wagons and an engine pushing as well as one pulling (I used to count them out of my bedroom window in Sion). All this goods traffic and more ended up in lorries on the A5. Contrary to the statement that stopped the new road starting when planned, that the SAC of the Foyle and its tributaries existed all the way to between Omagh and Ballygawley, when in fact it stops at Newtownstewart – a fundamental mistake which is difficult to understand, there is no legal impediment why therefore the road from Newtownstewart to Ballygawley cannot be built immediately and also the Sion Mills bypass which goes the other side of the village up by the Glebe and nowhere near the river. It always amazes me when I am told by people from Belfast, Antrim and Down that they have NEVER been to Sion or Strabane, when it would have been the main route to Co. Donegal in my youth. They prefer to go via Derry; no wonder we have no economic development. We are considered the back of beyond – unreachable – when this is in fact God’s own country and should be a tourists’ paradise. Celia Ferguson, Sion Mills