No buses, trams in The Hague as public transit workers strike

Many thousands of commuters, school pupils, and other people will have to find different ways to get to their destination in The Hague and the surrounding area on Thursday. The employees of public transit company HTM are on strike all day. No buses and no trams are running on Thursday. The RandstadRail to and from Zoetermeer will also remain in the depot throughout the day. The RandstadRail to and from Rotterdam is running.

Trade unions FNV and CNV organized the strike. They demand a wage increase of 5 percent and retention of purchasing power for HTM employees. The carrier doesn't want to go that far. The company says it is still feeling the financial blow of the coronavirus crisis when there were far fewer bus and tram travelers because people worked from home. Just before the unions announced the strike, HTM did say it would unilaterally raise wages by 3.1 percent this year. 

The Hague public transit company employs over 2,000 people and transports approximately 425,000 travelers every day on 13 tram lines and ten bus lines. Besides The Hague, HTM is also responsible for public transport in surrounding places like Delft, Zoetermeer, Rijswijk, Nootdorp, Westland, Leidschendam, and Voorburg. The company said it would lose about a quarter of a million euros if all trams and buses were halted for a day. 

NS trains are running to and from The Hague as usual. The regional buses by EBS are also on schedule. EBS employees held a strike on Wednesday. 

Traffic was already building up around The Hague with the strike underway. A jam caused 10 minutes of extra travel time on the eastbound N211 heading towards Delft, and the A4 was backed up from that point going north to the A12, according to the ANWB. There was the equivalent of 22 kilometers of heavier jams further north on the A4 in both directions near Leidschendam. 

Traffic jams were also developing at the start of the eastbound A12 along the Malieveld and on the N44 towards Wassenaar, where people could expect to sit in stop-and-go traffic for about ten minutes.