[NL] Roads and Motorways in the Netherlands • Autosnelwegen

[Majestic]

Wow, those stack interchanges look very impressive, remind me much of the interstates ones.
And this futuristic architecture looks astonishing (gotta love this black building on the 7th pic) although the Hotel looks much too corny.
The last picture is literally an american downtown.

[ChrisZwolle]

Like the Scandinavian threads, i thought i might be a good idea to describe some motorways in the Netherlands.

First thing's first, the A1:

A1 Amsterdam - Amersfoort - Apeldoorn - Hengelo - German border (A30)


The A1 runs from the capital, Amsterdam, eastbound to the German border. The motorway is 157 kilometers long.

The motorway starts at interchange Watergraafsmeer, on the eastern side of Amsterdam at the A10 ringroad. Immediatly becoming an extremely busy commuter route, and is prone to traffic jams almost all day. There are 2x3 lanes available, with a reversible lane between Diemen and Muiden, to accomodate the traffic from the suburban city of Almere. Though, with 4 lanes in the rushhour direction, this is by far not enough to accomodate the growing traffic from the fast growing city of Almere. This road is very busy in both directions all day long. Traffic jams are guaranteed during rushhours.

After the A6 exits towards Almere, traffic volumes decrease, but the road narrows near Naarden to 2x2 lanes, creating another bottleneck. The road is very narrow through Blaricum and Bussum, and heavy traffic all day long. After interchange Eemnes, where we cross the A27, there can be some relief, though this doesn't last long, because the traffic jams at interchange Hoevelaken can back up all the way to here. We pass by the city of Amersfoort, and after the exit Barneveld (A30), traffic becomes more quiet. The road is usually freeflow until Apeldoorn, where a lot of A50 traffic, and commuters between Apeldoorn and Deventer join the road. Here starts one of the busiest truck corridors in the Netherlands. Between interchange Beekbergen and Deventer-East, extra lanes are available during rushhours. The next 45 km feature a huge line of trucks on the right lane. It is not uncommon to drive all the way to Almelo on the left lane.

Between Almelo and Hengelo, the A35 runs concurrent with the A1, and this is the last busy section in the Netherlands. After Hengelo, traffic volumes are decreasing fast, and after Oldenzaal, traffic is quiet for Dutch standards. At border station De Lutte, we enter the German A30, which leads to Osnabrück, Hannover and Berlin.

[Verso]

That's some interesting architecture for sure. Along the Italian A4 between Milan and Venice everything is built up, so even at night the motorway is lit b/c of that. Nice description, Chris!

[ChrisZwolle]

N376 Nieuw-Amsterdam - Rolde -> 35km, 73 pics

I had to go to Rolde today, a village located just east of Assen, the capital of the province of Drente. It's a scenic and quiet road, although the posted speed limit often didn't make any sense, 20km/h too fast was safely feasible.

[Jeroen669]

It's such a shame such beautiful roads are getting completely ruined.

[Verso]

Nice landscape. How much of the Netherlands (%) are forests? And I don't mean small woods, but real forests.

[ChrisZwolle]

Approximatly 8%. All forests are man-made.

In 1871 the last old original natural woods (Beekbergerwoud) were cut down and most woods today are planted monocultures of trees like Scots Pine and trees that are not native to the Netherlands. These woods were planted on anthropogenic heaths and sand-drifts (overgrazed heaths) (Veluwe).

[Verso]

^ Interesting. Anyone want a photo story from a bear-inhabited forest?

[Qaabus]

You want a photo story from a boar-inhabited suburb? :p
Some of those 'monocultures' were planted 300 years ago by the way. They are 'mono' in name only.

[ChrisZwolle]

I made a little video by driving through a typical Dutch social housing neighborhood. It is taken in my hometown Zwolle, a city of 116,000 the capital of the province of Overijssel. The video was taken in "Holtenbroek", a typical 1960's neighborhood.

[Majestic]

Nice tour, thanks for sharing. I'm surprised to see so many tall commieblocks in a dutch city. I've also noticed that the city centre is surrounded by a star-shaped foss. That's so special!

[Jeroen669]

Nice video. Some neighborhoods in the south of Arnhem do look exact the same like this.

[Koesj]

The former also represents the 'stroken- en stempelbouw' or strip and stamp method by which neighbourhood blocks were filled. Along and across the road pattern several different types of buildings were combined to 'fill up' the large and empty park space inbetween. This was tried in order to create a greenish park-like cityscape. So you can have for example two rows of lowrise appartments, a row of senior-citizen subsidised housing, a midrise commieblock and a small park with a pond and a few hanging willows. These cityscapes were often topped off with a couple of mid- to highrise appartment blocks along arterial roads.

In case of the latter, check out this link in Google Maps right here

[Jeroen669]

Originally Posted by Majestic

I've also noticed that the city centre is surrounded by a star-shaped foss. That's so special!

Almost every dutch city of >50.000 inhabitants has, or used to have, canals all around the city-center.

[CborG]

Aerials of the A2 widening around Eindhoven:

Junction Batadorp (A2xA58)


Viaducts for the parallel road U/C:


Junction de Hogt (A2xA67)


The new fly-overs can be seen in he middle:


Junction Leenderheide with the future bypass visible:


pics by Joop van Houdt
More pics here: http://www.ed.nl/specials/fotoalbums/randwegfotos/

[timmy- brissy]

How big is Netherlands because i think its a small country so it must be quite quick for traveling and isn't it flat.

[timmy- brissy]

How big is Netherlands because i think its a small country so it must be quite quick for traveling and isn't it flat.

[ChrisZwolle]

Originally Posted by timmy- brissy

How big is Netherlands because i think its a small country so it must be quite quick for traveling and isn't it flat.

N-S is about 300 - 350km, and E-W is about 120 - 200km. Travelling is outside rushhours okay, but it could take a while within rushhours. I once drove from The Hague to Zwolle, a distance of about 160km, it took me 4 hours.

[Jeroen669]

Originally Posted by timmy- brissy

How big is Netherlands because i think its a small country so it must be quite quick for traveling and isn't it flat.

We may be small, but we are one of the densest countries in the world, which makes the country actually feel bigger than it is.

[LochNESS]

Impressive upgrades around Eindhoven. Much needed also because many of the junctions were outdated and capacity is too low. Those flyovers will be pretty impressive I think

@timmy-brissy: The Netherlands are around 33000 sq km or almost twice the size of New Jersey (thinking you come from the US) according to the CIA factbook The Netherlands has 3,270 km of expressways and with that I've heard that we have the highest density of motorways in the world (just above Belgium)

Although outside rushhours, like Chriszwolle said, you can travel quite fast, it can take ages if you are travelling in rushhours or in bad weather