Railroad connecting Groningen & Amsterdam could ditch Lelystad for Afsluitdijk

The team investigating routes for the Lely railway line is also considering a route that skips Flevoland altogether, instead running through Noord-Holland and over the Afsluitdijk. The other two possible routes for the railway line to connect the northern provinces to the Randstad both run through Lelystad and Flevloand, NOS reports.

The project team is investigating the best options for the Lelylijn, aimed to significantly reduce the travel time from the northern provinces to the Randstad, on behalf of the national government. They hope to present the route that scores best in terms of accessibility, financing, and economic options, among other things, next spring.

According to Stijn Lechner, director of the project team, the research is necessary to make a good and careful assessment. “We want to compare apples with apples and see whether these other routes provide us with useful information about costs, passenger numbers, and speed, for example,” he said.

“Then it helps if we look further than just a route that runs through Flevoland,” Lechner continued.

“We want to investigate to see what information it gives us. It could well be that the research will soon show that the route through Flevoland seems the most plausible, but it could also be that this is not the case,” Lechner said.

“The politicians have said that the route should run via Flevoland. We are checking whether that is the right decision.”