The A55 road forms
Belfast
Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...
's outer-ring road.
Description
A55 links many of the main arterial routes within the city as well as creating a bypass of the often congested city centre and problematic
A12 Westlink. Large sections of the route in east Belfast have been upgraded to dual carriageway standard with at-grade traffic light controlled junctions, together with off-road cycle paths alongside. However many sections (e.g. through
Knock and from the Shaw's Bridge (Belvoir) to the
M1) remain single carriageway, with four lanes of traffic. (Though the section through Knock has a proposed upgrade going through the final designs stages as of January 2009.) Despite this, all of the route in the west and north of the city (with the notable exception of the Monagh Bypass near
Andersonstown
Andersonstown, known colloquially as Andytown, is a suburb of west Belfast, Northern Ireland, at the foot of the Black Mountain and Divis Mountain. It contains a mixture of public and private housing and is largely a working-class area with a ...
) is nothing more than a single carriageway two-lane road based on local city streets and arterial routes.
Crossing the Lagan
The A55 crosses the
River Lagan
The River Lagan (; Ulster Scots dialects, Ulster Scots: ''Lagan Wattèr'') is a major river in Northern Ireland which runs from the Slieve Croob mountain in County Down to Belfast where it enters Belfast Lough, an inlet of the Irish Sea. The ...
at Lagan Valley Regional Park, where the
Malone Road
The Malone Road () is a radial road in Belfast, Northern Ireland, leading from the university quarter southwards to the affluent suburbs of Malone and Upper Malone, each a separate electoral ward. The road runs parallel to the Lisburn Road and i ...
becomes the Milltown Road. The single-span, 70m-long arched concrete bridge runs parallel to the more historic Shaw's Bridge, which it replaced in 1977.
Proposed upgrades
The lack of investment directed towards an upgrade for these sections of the city's ring road can be explained by a lack of demand, relatively lower traffic levels and few industrial sites in comparison to those of the south and east. However, in an attempt to attract inwards investment into the area the West Belfast & Greater Shankill Task Force has laid out a plan (publicised in late 2008) which proposes to extend and improve the route; extending from the Monagh Bypass as far north as the
A52 Crumlin Road
The Crumlin Road is a main road in north-west Belfast, Northern Ireland. The road runs from north of Belfast City Centre for about four miles to the outskirts of the city. It also forms part of the longer A52 road which leads out of Belfast to th ...
in the northwest of the city.
References
{{coord, 54.56784, N, 5.89886, W, type:landmark_region:GB_dim:4000, display=title
Roads in Northern Ireland
Bridges in Northern Ireland