Dither, death and the A5

There’s another hold-up on the A5. Not a traffic jam, not  people lying in the road because they are ecology warriors, not civil service inefficiency (although I suspect there was a bit of that last one). It’s just that there appear to have been objections, presumably by farmers whose land will be disrupted by this road.

Times, then, would appear to have changed. On our farmland on the outskirts of Omagh, ‘way back in the 1950s, a huge sewerage works was built. There was no question of my father’s voice being heard: Omagh needed a new sewage reservoir, and this was where it would be. Even though this was a huge blemish on good land, and even though there were other farms (many of them Protestant, as it happens) in the same area, my father’s fields were the unlucky choice.

His land adjoined the Derry Road, which at the time did have some traffic driving on to Derry. Most of the traffic, however, as I remember it, was bicycles of Omagh people who worked in Nestlés factory, further on down the road.  In short, it contrasted with the A5: the amount of traffic and hence the number of fatal crashes was low; in contrast the present-day A5 has traffic that is steady and there are regular fatalities.

Here’s a hard fact. While the authorities listen to the objectors to the new A5,  time ticks away and deaths mount. Are the civil servants who dither and delay aware of this? Or do they know but push the murderous thought to the back of their mind?

Maybe the A5 is the wrong route to develop? Maybe present-day drivers are too careless and so people die?

Or maybe road-building is the wrong strategy, and the development of a rail network would be far less intrusive and far more planet-friendly?

Or maybe the problem is a mixture of these elements.  Whatever is the case, until the road is completed, people will continue to die. Maybe, beside the little screen showing your miles per hour, they should show pictures of those who have crashed and died over the years.

Jackets off,guys, and get cracking. The life of many people is in your hands.