To prevent the Dutch road network from silting up, extra investments in infrastructure in a new coalition period are an absolute necessity, says TLN president Elisabeth Post. By 2040, the road network is expected to be so congested that minor disruptions quickly lead to traffic jams.
According to the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management's Integral Mobility Analysis (IMA), car use increases with high economic and demographic growth. As a result, congestion will double in 2040 compared to 2018. Both around major cities and in the regions, this could lead to traffic below the speed limit and congestion during minor disruptions.
Post calls the report an "emergency signal". "Without additional investment in our roads, we will be at a complete standstill by 2040. The Netherlands is expected to continue to grow, both economically and in terms of population. On balance, that means more passenger and goods traffic. These figures don't lie: if we want to keep up with this growth, we have to keep investing in infrastructure."
Clogged road, water and rail networks
According to the report, freight transport in terms of transported weight grows at low and high economic growth across all modes: by road by 5 to 27 per cent, by rail by 32 to 55 per cent and via inland shipping by 6 to 20 per cent until 2040. This leads to congested road, water and railways even at low economic growth, the report concludes. Even if the national government implements the current investment programme - the MIRT. The analysis also takes into account that more people will work from home and use public transport more in the future.
'After corona crisis not getting rid of traffic jams'
"We really need to get rid of the idea that we will be rid of traffic jams after the corona crisis: that is really an illusion," responds Post. "This report underlines again that we will not solve the congestion problem only with more trains or working from home. Of course, more asphalt is not an end in itself, and I welcome any investment in improving our mobility, but our roads are also only getting busier. And we will soon be standing still again and even more massively if a new cabinet does not invest in those roads in time."
3 billion extra
TLN, together with the Mobility Alliance, is calling for an extra 3 billion euros to be released structurally for investments in infrastructure. With that annual extra investment, we will return to the level of a decade ago in terms of accessibility spending as a percentage of GDP.
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