City traffic getting out of hand; completely blocked by 2021: report

If no decisive measures are taken, roads in Dutch cities will be completely blocked by 2021 due to a doubling in traffic, Trouw reports based on an investigation CROW did for the newspaper. According to the research firm, the current focus is too much on solving traffic problems on main roads and highways, and too little on city accessibility.

CROW, a research firm that specializes in infrastructure and traffic, expects that traffic will increase most in the Randstad area. But cities like Kampen, Leeuwarden and Groningen will also have problems. Currently cities account fro about half of all traffic problems.

Even if full attention is turned to solving traffic problems in cities, doing so will be difficult, according to the research firm. The maximum capacity of the road network in cities has already been reached, which means that creating new infrastructure will have only limited effect. A possible solution would be to focus on innovative public transport connections, CROW concluded.