Drivers in the Netherlands were neither imagining things nor embellishing in 2018 when they complained about travel times. Dutch highways were far more clogged in 2018 than a year earlier, with traffic jams up nearly 20 percent.
The heavy traffic had an impact on rush hour, but also outside of the daily busy periods, travellers association ANWB revealed on Thursday. The organization made their calculations based on both the frequency and duration of traffic jams.
Activists angered by the use of blackface around the Dutch Sinterklaas tradition are planning to protest in Dokkum on Saturday.
Authorities in the Netherlands will pursue a criminal case against a doctor accused of performing euthanasia on a 74-year-old incapacitated woman with dementia. Her prosecution will be the country's first against a doctor involving euthanasia since the Dutch law permitting the practice went into law over 15 years ago.
The A12 in Den Haag, also called the Utrechtsebaan, is closed in both directions on Thursday morning due to a burst water pipe. The extremely cold weather turned the road into something of an ice rink, the Telegraaf reports.
Divers searching the Böttgerwater in the Ypenburg district of Den Haag found the body of Orlando Boldewijn on Monday, police said. Investigators were working the area in an effort to find the 17-year-old Rotterdam boy who did not return after a February 17 meeting with an acquaintance made through dating app Grindr.
Dutch foreign affairs minister Halbe Zijlstra is leaving his role in the Prime Minister Mark Rutte's cabinet following the revelation that he lied about attending a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The government is investing over 300 million euros into expanding the rail network between Den Haag and Rotterdam, the ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management announced on Monday. By 2025 this route will run eight intercity trains and six sprinters per hour, which means a train every five minutes.
An autopsy was scheduled to determine what killed a 39-year-old Den Haag man who appeared to be repeatedly punched when police tried to apprehend him, prosecutors said Friday evening. Paul Selier, a father of two children living in The Hague, was identified in media reports as the victim.
A detective in the Den Haag police unit is suspected of leaking police information to criminals for a period spanning around 18 months, according to the Public Prosecutor. The 35-year-old man searched the police systems to find out whether there were investigations into certain suspects, NOS reports.
A difficult Thursday rush hour was expected to cap an annoying work day for many in the Netherlands. Trouble on the railroad, confusion at the airport, and traffic jams were likely to continue well into the evening.
Three people were hurt by falling pieces of ceiling at Schiphol Airport outside departure halls 1 and 2 on Thursday, a Schiphol employee confirmed to NOS. The pieces of ceiling were blown loose by hurricane strength winds.
Departure halls 1 and 2 were evacuated and are closed until further notice, according to the broadcaster. Passengers can check in at departure hall 3.
Hurricane-force winds in the Netherlands forced the shutdown of nearly all train service, all Schiphol air traffic, and several local tram services on Thursday. The NS made the decision to stop the trains as damage reports on the railways and at train stations kept coming in, the NS said.
The police discovered a woman brutally murdered in a yoga studio on Neptunusstraat in Den Haag on Thursday while investigating a missing person report. A woman living on Neptunusstraat was reported missing on Tuesday, January 9th. The body was found when the police went to investigate the missing woman's home two days later.
A woman was found dead in a yoga studio in the Neptunusstraat in Den Hague on Thursday afternoon. The police suspects the woman was victim of a brutal crime. A 40-year-old man from Den Haag was arrested in connection with the case, according to a police report.
The U.S. State Department distanced itself this week from the factually inaccurate picture the new American Envoy to the Netherlands painted about Islamic fundamentalist rioting in the Netherlands in 2015. At an event that year, Peter Hoekstra declared the existence of areas in the Netherlands where politicians were set on fire and effective "no-go zones" that were too dangerous for authorities
For the first time since the economic crisis, the number of home sales in a quarter fell in the Netherlands. In the last 3 months of 2017 about 61,000 homes were sold, which shows a decrease of about six percent.
This phenomenon is mainly due to the fact that there is a supply shortage with fewer homes listed for sale, the real estate organization NVM announced on Thursday. In the last quarter of 2017 there where 36% fewer houses on the market, reports newspaper NU.
The aldermen form the Randstad want more money to be invested for the light rail, the rapid transit railway in the Randstad. If that doesn't happen, they fear that the public transport will be paralyzed within 10 years.
NOS conducted a study asking the councilors form municipalities in the Randstad how they pictured the development of the light rail. The questions concerned the actual plans and whether the investments by the Rijksoverheid (the central government) behind it were sufficient.
After a brief 24-hour respite, very windy weather is expected to return to the Netherlands on Thursday afternoon, causing a challenging rush hour period in Rotterdam, Leiden, Den Haag, and Maastricht. The wind adds an extra problem where a regional public transportation strike is in effect through 11 p.m.
Some 59 flights scheduled to depart on Wednesday from Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport were cancelled with wind gusts expected to top 110 kilometers per hour that day. All departures were scheduled to take off between 4 a.m. and 8 a.m.
A further 59 arrivals, set to land on Wednesday between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. were also scrapped.
In his first New Year's Day address to Amsterdam, Acting Mayor Jozias van Aartsen praised Amsterdam as a respected capital city, one that "feels connected to the rest of the country." The annual address lauded efforts to reduce overcrowding in the city center, the development of new neighborhoods and hotspots, and focused attention on continued need for public transit investment.
Periodic rain showers could dampen New Year's celebrations on Sunday night and Monday morning, according to several weather forecasts for the Netherlands. Southern border provinces can expect high temperatures of 13 degrees, while the rest of the country could peak at 12 degrees, the Dutch national weather service KNMI stated. This could break the New Year's Day warm weather record of 12.3 degrees set in 2006.
A man who was shot by security troops at Schiphol Airport on Friday afternoon after allegedly threatening people with a knife was identified as a 29-year-old man from Den Haag. The shooting happened in the Schiphol Plaza, the airport's primary entryway which also provides access to the train station below.
Three shots can be heard in amateur video recorded in the plaza.
All train traffic to and from both Schiphol Airport and Amsterdam Centraal was halted Monday evening as snow continuously fell upon the region beginning just after noon. Hundreds of passengers were stranded at the airport, according to local broadcaster AT5. Large lines formed at the taxi rank there, while wait times for Uber vehicles was in the double digits.
The airport was setting up cots for people forced to sleep at the airport, broadcaster NOS reported.
Over 343 reports of traffic jams in the Netherlands tied up 2,501 kilometers of roadways in the country on Monday at 5:05 p.m., according to traveller's association ANWB. The amount of traffic increased by fifty percent in just 30 minutes, easily setting a record for the worst traffic day of 2017, despite the use of 900 snowplows and 1,200 extra road workers to deal with
