WILL MORE DUTCH ASPAHLT REDUCE INCREASING TRAFFIC JAMS

The biggest party of The Netherlands, the Christian Democrat party CDA, wants 250 kilometres of extra highway to try to reduce the enormous traffic jam inconvenience. In 2003 there were 34.225 traffic jams with a total length of 108.402 kilometres . Again the traffic jams were a lot longer than the year before. The CDA wants to widen the highways and make double-decker highways.

In terms of percentage The Netherlands has the most asphalt in the world. Every year more cars are sold and more and longer traffic jams appear. Very costly for the Dutch economy and very bad for the environment. Since the traffic jams seriously grow on a yearly basis, the Dutch have to fear a total standstill in the future.

Since years they are doing everything they can think of to prevent traffic jams. To sum up a few: car pooling, traffic jam strips, temporarily overtaking prohibition, traffic jam fighters urging drivers to keep on driving, automatic traffic dosage, circulation routes, car tranferiums and route control with video camera's. How to solve one of the most costly problems in the world. Apart from a wide variety of creative measures the Dutch seem to decide to fight the problem with many more kilometres of asphalt. more features

June 28, 2004