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Freeways in the Netherlands

Started by Chris, March 24, 2010, 09:43:35 AM

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Chris

#25
A3 was supposed to run from Amsterdam to Dordrecht, thus bypassing Rotterdam slightly to the east. The N3 expressway around Dordrecht is a left-over from this project. But it never really took off, apart from a ROW south of Amsterdam (which is now an urban development), it wasn't constructed.

The A16 near Rotterdam was supposed to run north, via Zoetermeer to the A4 near Leiden, creating an additional north-south route. Earlier plans also had an A22 running from north of The Hague to Haarlem. If those plans came into fruition, we would have 4 north-south routes in the Randstad metropolis instead of two.

Widening the A2 to 10 lanes is an answer to the never-constructed A3 in my opinion. The A2 has an higher-than-average share of through traffic (that is, traffic that does not use one of the exits between Amsterdam and Utrecht).

Generally, the 21st century saw a resurrection of freeway projects. The last major freeways were constructed in the late 1970's, and during the 1980's the idea was not to construct any more freeways, so traffic wouldn't grow either. But this didn't quite worked out, and during the 1990's the idea was to create as much capacity as possible on existing roads (shoulder running), which led to an extremely saturated highway network, possible the most saturated in all of Europe. In the early 2000's, the finally saw that that didn't work either, and the only solution was a robust widening.

Right now, a large number of significant freeway overhauls are in advanced stages of planning and procedures;

* A1 Amsterdam - Almere: widening to as much as 12 lanes, with reversible lanes (7 lanes per peak direction)
* A1 Hilversum - Amersfoort: widening from 4 to 8 lanes.
* A2 Amsterdam - Eindhoven: widening to 8 - 10 lanes, mostly completed. Only Den Bosch - Eindhoven is missing (due in 2013).
* A4 Amsterdam - Rotterdam: completion of the 40-year missing link south of Delft, doubling of capacity near Leiden
* A5 new Amsterdam bypass (west side)
* A9 overhaul and realignment along the southern side of Amsterdam
* A10 widening to 10 lanes, and the construction of the second Coen Tunnel (busiest 4-lane freeway in NL at 120,000 AADT).
* A12 The Hague - Germany: a series of temporary and robust widening, to six lanes or more for almost it's entire length (as much as 10 lanes between Gouda and Utrecht)
* A13 Rotterdam, new bypass from A13 to A16, reducing pressure on the A20
* A15 Europort - Rotterdam: widening from six to 10 lanes with a local-express setup to cope with the projected 55,000(!) trucks per day (more than I-710 Los Angeles or I-80 Chicagoland).
* A27 widening between much of Breda - Utrecht to six and eight lanes (now 4 lanes)
* A28 widening between Utrecht and Amersfoort to six and eight lanes (now 4 lanes)
* A50 widening between Arnhem and Nijmegen, from 4 to 6 and 8 lanes (including a second Waal Bridge)

As you can see, these projects are not chicken shit, but the largest projects in 40 years.


mgk920

Very interesting, indeed!  That stuff from Nederlands should be 'must-reading' for ALL of those lefty enviro-wacko types who keep preaching the Gospel of 'induced demand' - where building roads is all that it takes to induce traffic.  The traffic pressure is already there and it will grow, so the emphasis MUST be on how to *best* accommodate it.  Yes, it can be done in ways that ensure that everything will 'fit in'.

:poke:

Speaking of the A15, are there any current plans to extend/complete it eastward from its current end at Overbetuwe to the A12, perhaps at the A18 interchange?

Mike

Chris

Quote from: mgk920 on June 21, 2010, 03:29:22 PM
Speaking of the A15, are there any current plans to extend/complete it eastward from its current end at Overbetuwe to the A12, perhaps at the A18 interchange?

There are plans to connect it to A12 between Duiven and Zevenaar, to form a southern arc of the city of Arnhem. However, "they" demand a tunnel under the Rhine river, and the preliminary cost estimates are already around 1 billion euros for only 8 miles of new 4-lane freeway. The problem is the Netherlands has an extremely low spending on transportation. Generally, around 2% of GDP in highway construction is seen as healthy, but the Netherlands invests only 0.25% of GDP in highway construction. This means projects have to be constructed one at the time. A positive effect of the recession is that the government increases highway spending.

yanksfan6129

Quote from: mgk920 on June 21, 2010, 03:29:22 PM
Very interesting, indeed!  That stuff from Nederlands should be 'must-reading' for ALL of those lefty enviro-wacko types who keep preaching the Gospel of 'induced demand' - where building roads is all that it takes to induce traffic.  The traffic pressure is already there and it will grow, so the emphasis MUST be on how to *best* accommodate it.  Yes, it can be done in ways that ensure that everything will 'fit in'.

:poke:

Speaking of the A15, are there any current plans to extend/complete it eastward from its current end at Overbetuwe to the A12, perhaps at the A18 interchange?

Mike

HEY BUDDY I'M A LEFTY ENVIRO-WACKO AND I SUPPORT NEW FREEWAY CONSTRUCTION!

agentsteel53

Quote from: yanksfan6129 on June 21, 2010, 09:01:15 PM


HEY BUDDY I'M A LEFTY ENVIRO-WACKO AND I SUPPORT NEW FREEWAY CONSTRUCTION!

do you personally induce demand?
live from sunny San Diego.

http://shields.aaroads.com

jake@aaroads.com

yanksfan6129

Quote from: agentsteel53 on June 21, 2010, 09:13:30 PM
Quote from: yanksfan6129 on June 21, 2010, 09:01:15 PM


HEY BUDDY I'M A LEFTY ENVIRO-WACKO AND I SUPPORT NEW FREEWAY CONSTRUCTION!

do you personally induce demand?

I'm actually the dude that pushes all the cars onto the road.

Truvelo

I see from Chris' post at the top of the page that one of the A4 missing links will be completed. What about the other two?

When all the robust widening currently planned is completed will we be back in the same position 20 years from now saying the 12 lane freeways have reached saturation point? What next, widen them to 20 lanes with 10 lane C/D roads :colorful:

It seems that ever since freeway networks were planned they would solve a county's traffic problem for good but in virtually every country they need widening and improving just to keep up with current traffic demands.
Speed limits limit life

english si

Quote from: Truvelo on June 22, 2010, 11:16:04 AMWhen all the robust widening currently planned is completed will we be back in the same position 20 years from now saying the 12 lane freeways have reached saturation point? What next, widen them to 20 lanes with 10 lane C/D roads :colorful:
This, as you know, is the problem in the UK. Except we've also ditched widening and replaced it with hard shoulder running, so widening to 8-lanes proper (plus shoulder running to give 10-lanes when needed) in 20 years will be more expensive.

Stuff like Variable Speed Limits and Hard-shoulder running are reasonable things, but they don't substitute for widening or upgrading other routes to get traffic off the congested routes. Both the Netherlands and the UK have the problem of only 2 routes between the first and second cities, and both of them forming part of longer routes and being really heavily trafficked (both the Netherlands and the south eastern/midlands sort of area of England are rather densely populated - think NJ or MA density and you'd be close). The lack of many decent other routes, for more local traffic is annoying.

We should have built the M62 bypass round the North of Manchester - yes, 300 houses would have had to have been demolished, but we spent almost as much money widening the M62 (now M60) to 4-lanes, and that isn't enough in places. The M25 is currently being widened to where it was predicted to be in the mid-late 90s in 1989 (and parts of it won't be even there, but 20 years behind) - where's the parallel routes - some were built in the early 90s (and were proposed in 1989) and parts of the 2/3 rings planned inside it are built to reasonable standards, but the eggs are all in one basket.

Glasgow and Newcastle's original plans (mostly unbuilt) would have eliminated congestion (but also most of the traffic generators in the latter case). Scotland are building a massive urban motorway as they can't widen the 10-lane Kingston bridge, which is falling apart, so are bypassing it with an adapted original scheme - the M74.

Chris

I'm surprised by the construction time of shoulder running in the UK, I've read something about a 3-year construction time. In the Netherlands they usually implement shoulder running in a few months. Only left-shoulder running (another weird thing in NL, where they first construct a 11 feet wide left shoulder, and then implement shoulder running) usually takes more time because it's almost as complicated as a regular widening.

The Dutch seem to have written off shoulder running somewhat, finally acknowledging what we already knew; shoulder running is not a sustainable solution, they are meant to be opened during peak hours (that is: max 4 - 5 hours per day), but the widening is so long overdue the existing traffic already warrants a full-time opened shoulder running. It's not uncommon to see shoulder running in operation at 11 am or 2 pm, or even on Saturday or Sunday mornings.

Chris

Somewhere in the 1990's, the Dutch automobile association ANWB had a monopoly on signage. They lost that on freeways, and decided to develop a new signage system for non-motorways, reportedly just to show their importance in signing. The result however, is far from satisfying, ANWB Redesign Uu replaced the good old Highway Gothic font (locally known as Ee). It has less spacing, a smaller font-size, and utterly ridiculous arrows compared to what we had.

Here is how it looks on overhead signage (in my opinion, rubbish)






The arrows are so flimsy compared to what we had, and the enormous amount of blue space is very annoying, saving on font legibility to create additional blue space? Don't get me started on this.  X-(

burgess87

Wow.

That's, um . . . . . . really, really bad.

The Premier

Quote from: burgess87 on July 08, 2010, 06:33:49 PM
Wow.

That's, um . . . . . . really, really bad.
No kidding. :thumbdown: They are actually better off with Highway Gothic because that makes no sense. IF you lost the right to make signs for freeways, they could have at least kept the Highway Gothic font for non-freeways.
Alex P. Dent

agentsteel53

the number 28 on route A28 looks very nice.  I think.  I can barely read it.  Maybe they could've made it even smaller, and placed a ladder in the middle of the road so that the driver can climb up for a closer look.
live from sunny San Diego.

http://shields.aaroads.com

jake@aaroads.com

Bickendan


Brandon

Would it kill them to use some sort of route shield for the route numbers?  When they're all text like that, they tend to blend into the rest of the text on the sign.
"If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." - Ramsay Bolton

"Symbolic of his struggle against reality." - Reg

Chris

I agree, route numbers in Europe are very dull. Only Romania has U.S.-like route shields.

I saw designs of Interstate Highways with Euro-style route numbers, I absolutely hated it.

agentsteel53

Quote from: Chris on July 09, 2010, 12:49:43 PM
I agree, route numbers in Europe are very dull. Only Romania has U.S.-like route shields.

Hungary has pentagon-shaped shields, which aren't the most interesting in the world, but not bad.

QuoteI saw designs of Interstate Highways with Euro-style route numbers, I absolutely hated it.

where? can you provide an example image?
live from sunny San Diego.

http://shields.aaroads.com

jake@aaroads.com

Chris

Oh stuff like this (note, just a guy experimenting with signage. Note the European influences of CBD (that phrase is never used in the U.S. I believe) and the "south" "north" directions indicating a portion of the city (Ellicot-South), which is common in Europe, but not the U.S.



No, thank you ;)

agentsteel53

Quote from: Chris on July 09, 2010, 02:22:10 PM
CBD (that phrase is never used in the U.S. I believe)

indeed, it is not.  what is it?  the work firewall is blocking the image.
live from sunny San Diego.

http://shields.aaroads.com

jake@aaroads.com

Chris

A few pictures of the N259 near Steenbergen. What's interesting about it? Well, it is one of the last roads in the Netherlands that has not been downgraded from it's grand 1960's alignment with concrete pavement, wide lanes and shoulders.

Apparently, roads half this width are considered much better, even with probably 4 times the traffic volume of back in the 60's.














Michael in Philly

#45
Quote from: Chris on July 09, 2010, 02:22:10 PM
Oh stuff like this (note, just a guy experimenting with signage. Note the European influences of CBD (that phrase is never used in the U.S. I believe) and the "south" "north" directions indicating a portion of the city (Ellicot-South), which is common in Europe, but not the U.S.



No, thank you ;)

I know that area well.  Seeing this done to the signs makes me weep.  (And not just because "Ellicott City" is misspelled.)
Although I heartily approve of Philadelphia becoming the, or at least a, control city for 95 northbound in the Baltimore area.

PS to Chris, I'm P.W. on SSC.
RIP Dad 1924-2012.

Truvelo

Quote from: Chris on July 12, 2010, 11:12:25 AM
A few pictures of the N259 near Steenbergen. What's interesting about it? Well, it is one of the last roads in the Netherlands that has not been downgraded from it's grand 1960's alignment with concrete pavement, wide lanes and shoulders.

So all two-lane roads back then had shoulders?

It looks like the N259 at the roundabouts at each end of the Steenbergen Bypass was originally divided as this view shows. I'm guessing there were gaps in the median for turning traffic.
Speed limits limit life

Chris

#47
Quote from: Truvelo on August 08, 2010, 03:28:05 PMSo all two-lane roads back then had shoulders?

Not by default, but important ones did. This one, for example was a "rijksweg" (national road) and was seen as being of national importance as it was part of the rijksweg 19 (later rijksweg 4) from Amsterdam to Antwerp.

If you realize how many roads are downgraded, both in design-standard and speed limit, it's just sad. I doubt if many countries managed to destroy a perfectly good road network as much as the Netherlands did (and is still doing).

Many two-lane roads that carry 10,000 - 20,000 vehicles per day are only 18 feet wide with no shoulders. It's not uncommon to see a truck having issues to keep within the road markings in curves. One lane is only 2.75 m wide, while trucks are 2.55 m wide, leaving just 20 centimeters space for corrections. Only freeways still have decent designs. The national road authority is the only one that still makes sensible decisions. Provinces and municipalities downgrade 50 roads for every 1 road upgraded....

Truvelo

Here's a section of road with trees between the road and sidewalk. This seems to be common. Am I right in saying the trees are where the shoulders were? The trees look no more than 20 years old. This road also has interchanges very similar to that at Steenbergen where the main road is undivided.
Speed limits limit life

Chris

Most trees along roads were planted after the 1960's and are all artificially planted. They're now considered a hazard because of head-on accidents with trees, but they are still planting them for landscaping reasons. Head-on accidents with trees are a major cause of traffic fatalities in the Netherlands. Most of these accidents involve only one vehicle and/or DUI. It's not uncommon to hear of accidents on Saturday night with 3 or more fatalities in one car, all aged somewhere between 18 and 24.



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