The Council of State blocked the widening of the Utrecht ring road in a ruling on Wednesday. The minister of the then Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment gave permission to widen the road, but the Council of State abolished this decision, NU.nl reports.
The plan was to widen the highway at Amelisweerd to seven lanes in each direction, in order to ensure a better flow of traffic on the A27 and A12 highways. In order to widen this highway, thousands of trees will need to be felled.
The Netherlands only barely escaped a disaster comparable to the collapse of the Morandi bridge in Italy last summer, professor of safety and disaster management Ben Ale and professor of structural engineering Rob Nijsse of TU Delft said to EenVandaag after studying an investigation report about the course of events around the closing of the Merwede bridge near Gorinchem in 2016.
The A28 highway between Zwolle and Groningen is closed in both directions at Assen after a major accident involving four trucks. Traffic service ANWB expects that the highway will be closed until at least 4:00 p.m. on Friday. Motorists are advised to seek alternative routes, NU.nl reports.
According to the ANWB, the accident caused havoc on the road. One side of the highway is full of mail, which came out of one of the trucks. The other side is full of beets. Exactly how the accident happened is not yet known.
Multiple accidents caused extreme amounts of traffic on Dutch roads during rush hour on Thursday evening. There was a total of 478 kilometers of traffic jams on the Dutch highways, making Thursday evening the busiest rush hour in the Netherlands so far this year, according to Rijkswaterstaat.
According to the ANWB, which also takes provincial roads into account, there was 887 kilometers of traffic jams on Dutch roads on Thursday evening. According to the ANWB's figures, Thursday evening was the third busiest rush hour this year.
In the first six months of 2018 traffic congestion on Dutch roads increased by approximately 20 percent compared to the same period last year, the ANWB announced. In the months of March April and May there were a lot more traffic jams and rush hour records were broken time and again, RTL Nieuws reports.
The increased traffic was particularly noticeable at the biggest bottlenecks on the Dutch road network, especially on the A4 from Amsterdam to Rotterdam, the A20 from Hoek van Holland to Gouda, and the A27 from Utrecht to Breda.
A 16-year-old cyclist was seriously injured after being hit by a car on the A27 highway near Bavel during the early hours of Friday morning. The boy was rushed to hospital in critical condition, the police said to NOS.
The boy was cycling on the emergency lane near Bavel in the direction of Antwerp. He ended up on the road and was hit by a French car. The boy is from Molenschot.
The road was closed for investigation after the accident.
Four traffic accidents in Noord-Brabant and Gelderland claimed a total of six lives over the past 24 hours.
A motorist deliberately bumped into another motorist at high speed multiple times on the A27 highway between Geertruidenberg and Werkendam on Saturday afternoon. No one was hurt. The police are looking for witnesses.
Dutch public works department Rijkswaterstaat sent a badger expert to Utrecht's Amelisweerd to investigate reports of a badger's burrow found in the forest. Should there indeed be a burrow in the forest with badgers, a protected species, living there, it could affect the expansion of the A27 highway, NU.nl reports.
At least two people were injured in an accident involving a truck and several cars on the A27 near Nieuwendijk on Tuesday afternoon. The A27 highway heading towards Utrecht is closed
From Friday, February 5th, 19 routes will have a speed limit of 130 kilometers per hour, including parts of the A1, A27, A28 and A58. In May motorists will be allowed to drive 130 kilometers per hour during the evening on the entire A2 route between Amsterdam and Utrecht.
The A27 from Gorinchem to Almere was closed down for several hours near Utrecht-Noord after a car accident involving a police car. Two officers were taken to the hospital with injuries
Salah Abdeslam, one of the suspects in the Paris terrorists attacks, was apprehended in the Netherlands during a traffic check in February this year. He was fined 70 euros for the possession of soft drugs and sent on his way.
Motorists may soon be able to drive faster on more highways. The speed limit will be increased to 130 kilometers per hour on 19 routes early next year.
The Belgian police have arrested three suspects in connection with the ING ATM bombing in the Moerwijk shopping center in Breda Monday morning and the subsequent shootout with police in Belgium. According to the police, a great deal of damage was done to the building where the cash machine was located, but the perpetrators did not make off with any money.
In 2013 traffic jams on Dutch highways cost businesses between 613 and 797 million euro.
Police have closed a stretch of the A27 highway after catching four armed robbers fleeing the scene of a jewelry store heist in Breda. At least three of the suspects are believed to have robbed the Shivani jeweler on Haagdijk nearly 45 kilometers south from where police caught up to them in Nieuwland, Zuid Holland.
Two men were involved in a wild chase on Sunday.
A truck fell off an overpass on the A27 near Utrecht. The driver sustained neck injuries and was rushed to a hospital.
