Roadworks on the highway to the south of Nicosia caused long tailbacks for those attempting to leave the capital on Friday morning with problems set to continue with more works over the weekend.

With construction work continuing on the Nicosia ring road, the public works department closed the southbound carriageway of the highway between Latsi and Dali over Thursday night.

Traffic was thus diverted onto the old single carriageway road out of Nicosia, and queues on the highway and on the old road were reported on Thursday evening.

The works were due to have been completed by 6am on Friday but due to delays, the three lines of the highway did not reopen until 7.15am, causing hold-ups and confusion for morning commuters.

Tailbacks are set to continue through the weekend, too, with lanes on the stretch of highway between the Alikos bridge and Latsia set to be closed between 8pm on Friday and 3pm on Sunday.

As a result, the southbound carriageway will be closed in that section, with one lane of contraflow traffic available for those wishing to exit Nicosia. The remaining two lanes of the northbound carriageway will be open as usual.

The aim is to have the road opened and back to normal before the later Sunday afternoon busy period when people return from the beach.

The current phase of the ring road is due to be handed over on August 5.

The problems of such works are exacerbated in car-dependent Cyprus, where there are 658 passenger cars per 1,000 inhabitants – just shy of 100 more than the European Union average.

The issue has previously been identified and highlighted by the government, with Transport Minister Alexis Vafeades having told the Cyprus Mail last year that “everyone’s trapped into using their cars”.

Efforts have been made to encourage people to use public transport and thus reduce the population’s reliance on private vehicles, but those have thus far not proven entirely successful.

The most notable recent example is the introduction of a park and ride service between the GSP stadium in Latsia and central Nicosia.