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Even before Phase 1 of Glider was launched in September 2018, there was talk within Translink and DFI of a "phase 2". Phase 1 saw an East-West route connecting Colin Town Centre in west Belfast, through the city centre to Dundonald (route G1), along with a shorter route to Titanic Quarter (G2). Phase 2 will see a similar route (G3) added north-south and will see G2 extended to Queen's University / City Hospital. The routes proposed in July 2021 are as follows (click to enlarge; all DFI images):

Extension of Glider route G2 to serve Queen's and the City Hospital	Proposed Southern Route towards Cairnshill
Proposed Northern Route Option 1, towards Glengormley via Antrim Road THIS OPTION WAS ADOPTED IN OCT 2022	Proposed Northern Route Option 2, towards Glengormley via Shore Road THIS OPTION WAS REJECTED IN OCT 2022

Updates

26 Feb 2025: In the previous update, almost exactly a year ago, I commented that the scheme has a total value of approximately £145m but that only £35m was actually available and that the scheme may need to wait until more cash was available. Yesterday the DFI Minister Liz Kimmins announced that DFI has managed to find an additional £13m from its own funds, giving a total of £48m. With this sum – which is only a third of what is needed – the Minister has decided to proceed now with part of the scheme. To be clear, I get no sense that the rest of the scheme is not going to happen. Rather, with it being unclear when the additional c£100m will become available, she has decided to be pragmatic and split the scheme into phases and build part of it now rather than waiting until the full sum is available before doing anything. So what is going to go ahead later in 2025 is:

• The construction and opening of the G2 extension to Queens University/City Hospital, along with purchasing four new Glider vehicles for the city's fleet to allow this to be serviced. Note: G2 is currently the route from Titanic Quarter to the city centre and the plan is to extend it through the city centre.
  
• Building some of the Glider-compatible bus lanes that will be needed on the G3 route to North Belfast and South Belfast, though not on the full length of either route.
• The park-and-ride at O'Neill Road in Newtownabbey, which will eventually be the terminus of the G3 North Belfast route. It will not be serviced with Glider vehicles yet, but rather with existing Metro buses. Note: The G3 South Belfast route will terminate at the existing Cairnshill park-and-ride site.
  
• Provision of Bankmore Link in the city centre - though it's not clear in what form, see the page for that scheme for more on that.
• Additional bus-priority measures in the city centre. These aren't spelled out, but it's probably the route along Donegall Place/Royal Avenue as well as Great Victoria Street and Hope Street.

Once this phase of the project is done we will have the existing G1 service to East and West Belfast, and an enhanced G2 service which will serve both Titanic Quarter and Queen's/City Hospital. We will NOT have any of G3, though some of the infrastructure will have been built. The remainder of the scheme will have to wait for an additional £100m in future years. This money will be needed to (a) complete the bus priority measures on both G3 routes (b) build the Glider halts with ticket machines along the G3 route and (c) purchase additional Glider vehicles. But for now we should see work commence on the ground later this year and I look forward to seeing more details of the timetabling.

The only other thing to comment on is that in 2022 Minister O'Dowd decided that BRT3 should be extended to Glengormley in the north and Carryduff in the south. Minister Kimmins has now reversed that decision, saying that the extension to Glengormley isn't appropriate pending a public realm scheme in Glengormley (though it was problematic anyway due to the lack of space for a dedicated bus lane on the full length) and that the extension to Carryduff doesn't make economic sense. This latter point is probably partly due to the general lack of caash, but probably also due to the relatively low expected return it would bring compared to what it would cost to built. You can see her full comments here.

21 Feb 2024: The new DFI Minister was asked about the finance for this scheme in a Written Question and he answered last week (question AQW 5670/22-27). He said that the scheme was estimated to cost around £145m. This is the same as the 2020 estimate, so I would suggest it's probably a bit more than that now, given the rate of construction inflation since then. He confirmed that £35m has been secured from the Belfast Region City Deal (which we knew). He said that the £20m from the UK's New Deal funding programme has been "paused". This happened in 2023 by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland during the Stormont interregnum, so may be reinstated in due course. He noted that he scheme is still £110m short of cash. DFI engineers don't appear to be too concerned about this, as the scheme is still in planning, and most transport schemes don't get funding at this early stage. However, this money will eventually need to come from somewhere if the project is to happen, and with DFI already low on cash and a lot of attention being focused on the A5, Rapid Transit 2 may need to wait for a bit when it gets close to construction.

18 Aug 2023: DFI Roads this week released a document showing how the current roads programme will be prioritised in the current economic and legislative climate, where DFI is now required to de-carbonise transport. BRT made the cut, but DFI did say more about the significant funding shortages the scheme is facing. It now seems that, in addition to the £35m from the Belfast Region City Deal, DFI are also hoping to get £20m from the UK's New Deal funding programme. This gives total funding of £55m which is still significantly less than the £142-148m required. DFI say that this will not scupper the project, but will rather mean it will likely be delivered in phases, with phase 1 focusing on reconstructing the roads themselves to provide the necessary bus priority measures. The Glider halts and vehicles themselves would then presumably be funded through future funding allocations. The scheme is not yet ready to go out to tender, with the outline business case still under development and detailed design not yet started. DFI do, however, indicate that the scheme "could" be operational five years from now in autumn 2028. I'd regard this date as a fairly rough estimate.

27 Oct 2022: Just six days before he was forced to leave his caretaker role by the Assembly rules, the DFI Minister published the "preferred route" for Phase 2 of Glider on 21 October. I am not going to go into lots of detail here about the lines of reasoning as they are all set out in the report that is linked from the press release. Basically the southern route will follow Ormeau Road, as expected, as far as Cairnshill park-and-ride. The northern route, which was more contentious, will follow Royal Avenue, North Street and then the Antrim Road to O'Neill Road at the south side of Glengormley. The G2 extension to Queen's University and City Hospital will proceed as planned. From a roads perspective this will mean both that Carlisle Circus will cease to be a roundabout and the Bankmore Link will probably be built, albeit for buses only. You may notice that the press release states that the southern route will extend to Carryduff. However, the document itself explicitly recommends against this saying that the stretch from Cairnshill to Carryduff has very few retail or employment sites and patronage would be expected to be very low. Similarly, the report does not recommend an extension of the northern route through Glengormley town centre as some of the roads it would need to pass along are only one lane each way, meaning no bus lanes are possible without demolishing property, which would significantly slow down the Glider. Notably, the Minister has instructed DFI to explore these options anyway. As he says in the press release "I have decided that the north and south routes should extend to Glengormley and Carryduff, respectively; however, the feasibility of such will be further assessed as part of the detailed design". Proceeding with these extensions against the recommendations of the report could certainly happen, but would need to be a political decision if the business case could not be made. The most important point that keeps getting missed in discourse about this project is that it is estimated to cost £142-148m but only £35m has been allocated, meaning that unless the non-existent Executive stumps up an additional c£110m this scheme will not happen. With no functioning Executive this is actually the default eventuality.

10 Aug 2022: DFI recently published the "first day briefing" that was given to the DFI Minister John O'Dowd when he entered his post in May 2022. The information therein notes that the current estimated cost of BRT Phase 2 is £142-148m (source, 2020 Ourline Business Case), which is double the estimated cost in 2018). It also repeats what we knew (see previous update) that the scheme has only been given £35m of funding in the Belfast City Deal, which represents 25% of the total cost. That is plainly a big problem, as proceeding would thus require the Executive to come up with an additional c£110m. Given the current economic climate; the fact that DFI doesn't even have enough funding for its committed projects, let alone new ones; and the non-existence of an Executive this seems unlikely at the present moment. So my feeling is that while planning for this scheme will continue, it is unlikely to move to construction in 2024/25 as previously hoped.

2 Mar 2022: In my previous update below I reported that BRT Phase 2 had been granted funding from the Belfast City Deal, and that this secured the future of the project. However it has since emerged that the amount of money allocated by the City Deal is £35m, which is in fact less than half the £70-80m estimated cost. Last week the DFI Minister described this as a "significant funding shortfall" and "insufficient to deliver the project". DFI will now need to talk to the Executive and the City Deal people to try to secure the additional £35-45m that will be required to complete the project. In the current climate of a partially-collapsed Executive this may not be easy, so this could be a serious spanner in the works for BRT. However, there is no reason why planning can't continue in the interim and that is what is happening. The Minister has confirmed that work is progressing on the development of a Public Consultation Report and Outline Business Case, which are the next steps to be taken.

16 Jan 2022: The Belfast Region City Deal was signed on 17 December 2021. This is the source of funding for the Phase 2 of BRT, so it makes the future of the scheme a bit more secure. The scheme is still in early planning stages, so it's a moot point in terms of timescale. Currently the earliest possible completion date is September 2027.

8 Sep 2021: DFI launched a public consultation into the route options for BRT2 on 26 July. You can see details of the proposals here, and the public consultation document can be downloaded (for now) here. The proposals have already attracted a lot of attention (not all positive) in the media and on social media, and I would strongly encourage anyone with views on BRT2 to respond to the consultation. You have until 4 October to respond. I would stress that the purpose of the consultation is to give the public a chance to respond to the various route options - the routes have NOT yet been decided. I have included maps of the options further up this page, but the three proposed routes are as follows.

• To extend the existing G2 service, that connects the City Centre to Titanic Quarter, south to the City Hospital and Queen's University via Shaftesbury Square and then Lisburn Road, Elmwood Avenue and University Road. Elmwood Avenue would become one-way eastbound under these proposals.
  
• To provide a Glider route south from the City Centre south along Great Victoria Street, then east along a new bus-only road from Bruce Street to Cromac Street, then south along Ormeau Road and the Saintfield Road, past Forestside and terminating at the existing Cairnshill Park-and-Ride.
• To provide a Glider route north from the City Centre along Donegall Place and Royal Avenue, and then either along Clifton Street to Carlisle Circus (which would become a signalised crossroads) then Antrim Road to Glengormley, terminating at a new park-and-ride site located at O'Neill Road or else along York Street and then the Shore Road to the Abbeycentre, wjhere there woudl be a park-and-ride site, then inland along Longwood Road and Church Road to a a new park-and-ride site located at O'Neill Road.

The first two are relartively uncontroversial but - as expected - the North Belfast options have unfortuinately, but not surprisingly, been more controversial. The basic reason for this is that the Antrim road serves a primarily Catholic area while the Shore Road serves a primarily Protestant area. This has led politicians to take different views on the route. From a purely construction point of view, the Shore Road is probably easier to construct given that it is already the equivalent of four lanes in width along the entire stretch, whereas the Antrim Road reduces to two lanes around the zoo. However, the Antrim Road route is 2 km shorter and has a larger number of sites that could attract users, including the Mater Hospital, Belfast Castle, Belfast Zoo and two large secondary schools (St Malachy's and Blessed Trinity). The Shore Road would serve Cityside Retail Park, Hazelwood College, Grove Leisure Centre, Seaview Stadium and the Abbeycentre.

One possible solution would be to build a circuit that took in both routes, perhaps with both clockwise and anti-clockwise services. The main disadvantage of this would be that it would double the length of required infrastructure and significantly raise the costs.

Other than these points, perhaps the most questioned proposal is to terminate at the city side of Glengormley, rather than extending the route through the village towards Sandyknowes. A park-and-ride at O'Neill Road would not be attractive to people travelling from further afield, as it would involve driving through suburbia. DFI may be taking the view that people like this would be served by park-and-ride facilities such as Templepatrick. The consultation document concludes that a route along the Antrim Road through Glengormley village would require highway widening, woudl be slowed by general traffic and would have a high impact on local traffic. It also suggests that it would compromise Sandyknowes' role as a strategic traffic route. As someone who lived in Glengormley for several years, I'm not convinced that the problems are quite that bad, and in particular I am not sure that it stacks up to say that it would compromise Sandyknowes' strategic role, since traffic going into Belfast from the north is itself strategic, and the fact that it is changing mode to the Glider does not make it any less important. However, in fairness to DFI, they have been trying for some years without success to acquire a park-and-ride site near Sandyknowes, so there are other reasons why it may not be possible.

Finally, it has been noted that BRT2 still does not attempt to link to the new Belfast Transport Hub at Grosvenor Road, which is currently under construction. This still does feel like a strange decision. One possible option would be to re-route G1 along Grosvenor Road instead of Divis Street, though this would involve decommissioning part of a Glider route that has only been in operation for three years and would take services away from sites like Belfast Metropolitian College. Another option would be re-route the G2 extension via Grosvenor Road -> Durham Street -> Bruce Street, so that it passed closer to the Hub. However, this option is addressed in the consultation where it is described as offering "limited carriageway width and the constrained City Centre nature [resulting] in lack of ability to provide high-levels of bus priority". This might be worth revisiting rather than accepting at face value, especially since Durham Street is to be completely rebuilt as part of the Hub works.

In conclusion - read the consultation and, if possible, respond before 5 October. Construction is still several years off as a lot more planning has to be done, and DFI have said that the earliest operational date for the scheme is 2027, which is still six years away.

10 Apr 2020: The scheme was included in the Belfast Region City Deal of 2018, and for this reason DFI are progressing the plans. This doesn't appear to mean that the scheme will definitely go ahead. The DFI Minister explained in February that "...the next stages will require close working across all departments and with the other Belfast Region City Deal partners. The work will include reaching agreement on funding and on which projects are most capable of delivering the City Deal objectives." The first part of the process is to carry out a feasibility study which will identify route options. This will also include cost estimates and cost/benefit analyses and will help to determine whether the scheme will be progressed. DFI have said that this feasibility study is due to be completed before the end of 2020.