Digital mapping company TomTom has released a study revealing Belfast as suffering the worst congestion than anywhere across Britain and the Northern Ireland. They define congestion as how much worse traffic can get compared to when it’s in an ideal state:
Congestion is calculated by collecting all the travel times recorded by TomTom during a given period of time in a given area and comparing them with the lowest travel times from when traffic is in a totally free-flowing state.
Congestion is expressed as a percentage, which is representative of the increase in travel time due to excess traffic. For example, a congestion level of 40 means that, on average, journey times across that area’s road network were 40% greater than when traffic is free flowing.
Belfast’s congestion level is rated at a massive 58.4%. A typical commuter ends up losing 102 hours per year during rush hour as a result. That’s a huge chunk of your life spent sitting idle on the road, sucking down fumes.
The Belfast Telegraph notes that the city has “the highest average speed of 28 km/h”. However, they cite “TomTom’s traffic expert Andy Marchant” who points out that Belfast is full of motorways that might see good speed in patches, only to grind to a halt when they get close to the city centre. Other roads like the Westlink, while technically an urban dual carriageway, suffer the same issue.
Belfast ranks somewhat better in “Average distance driven in 15 minutes”, coming in at 7km, though this still puts it in at 24th out of the 25 worst. London comes in ‘top’ in this category, with drivers typically only able to move 4.1km in a quarter of an hour.
Report indicates downward trend worldwide
TomTom report that their study:
…monitored the health of our roads, capturing its minute-by-minute pulse to assemble a year-long overview of how vehicles have moved through hundreds of our world’s major cities.
The results indicate that things are actually getting worse across the world generally, as they:
…observe the overarching trend that congestion, by congestion level and travel time per kilometer, has worsened.
Among the cities called out are:
London, England; Bengaluru, India; Dublin, Ireland; Mexico City, Mexico; Barcelona, Spain; Athens, Greece; Milan, Italy; Rosario, Argentina; Hiroshima, Japan; San Francisco, United States
Some cities have seen an improvement, however. Groningen in The Netherlands, already famed as a cyclist’s paradise, managed to cut its congestion level a further 23% in a year. Commuters lose a fraction of their lives to traffic compared to their counterparts in Belfast, with just 29 hours per year being pissed away staring at someone else’s rear windscreen. This is typical of many other Dutch cities.
This contrasts sharply with the failures in the Six Counties. Stormont was slammed by a September 2025 NI Audit Office report which found the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) had not met its targets on increasing active travel, which is defined as:
undertaking of a journey by walking, wheeling or cycling, including journeys made using e-cycles, adapted cycles, wheelchairs and push scooters
As an example of failure, the report cites:
…the 2015 Bicycle Strategy for Northern Ireland [which] included a target for 20 per cent of all journeys less than one mile to be cycled by 2025. The report notes that the most recent data available (relating to 2021) suggests that only 1.1 per cent of such journeys are being cycled.
The Green Party’s Belfast City councillor Brian Smyth highlighted the TomTom report’s findings, as he urged residents to back new cycling infrastructure in South Belfast.
Smyth had previously been a backer of the night bus pilot that rolled out over the Christmas period, and saw a 70% increase in use from the previous year. Belfast is a rare case of a European capital that doesn’t provide buses through the night, leading to unnecessary car journeys.
Belfast — time to abandon the American model
It’s not just that traffic jams steal people’s time that could be spent doing something more enjoyable or productive. Car-filled streets also inflict other costs on society, contributing to climate breakdown and an increased risk of fatalities. An increase in active travel would see better health outcomes in a region that suffers from high rates of illness, alongside crushing hospital waiting lists.
From a socialist perspective, cars are instruments of anti-solidarity – everyone stuck in their own little tin can, competing feverishly with those beside them to get ahead, and deprived of the social interactions that take place when walking or using public transport. Road systems built for cars have been drivers of inequality, cultural homogenisation and community destruction.
wAs in so many acts of transatlantic mimicry, Britain and Ireland have harmed themselves through the adoption of an American model, in this case car-dominated transport systems. As nations bound to the US increasingly reconsider their position, this is yet another example of where divergence from the neoliberal hellscape across the pond is long overdue.
Featured image via Wesley Johnston
This post was originally published on Canary.