Busiest bridge in the Netherlands, a bone of contention between governments – Advertising Rotterdam | The Havenloods

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Fri Apr 26, 11:09 am

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Rotterdam – The Van Brienenoord Bridge turned out to be a divisive issue between governments this week. Due to the confusing reporting regarding the safety of the Rotterdam Van Brienenoord Bridge, confidence in the Government suffered a major dent again.

By Fred Marree

The mayors of Rotterdam and The Hague sent an urgent letter to the forming parties on behalf of the Rotterdam The Hague Metropolitan Region.

They ask for more money, much more money. They are concerned about the safety of the Van Brienenoord Bridge. The mayors want the postponement of major maintenance on the busiest bridge in the Netherlands to be reversed. The letter even mentions the risk of collapse. That’s coming.

As manager of the Van Brienenoord Bridge, Rijkswaterstaat (RWS) probably felt betrayed and immediately referred the mayors’ fears to the land of fables. RWS subsequently stated that there is no risk of collapse. “The Van Brienenoord Bridge may be old, but it is still safe.”

By the way, you shouldn’t imagine that the busiest bridge in the Netherlands will be shut down for a longer period of time from one day to the next or that it will have to lose a lot of capacity. This would result in an unprecedented traffic jam with serious economic and social consequences. But what are the mayors’ fears based on if RWS explicitly states that the bridge is safe?

At the municipal level, the alarm is sounded about an unsafe bridge and at the national level it is claimed that the same bridge is safe. This is not how you build trust in the government and, more importantly for safety, who is right?

The government is once again making a fool of itself and that is not doing any good to confidence. This means that we continue to mop the floor with the tap open and politicians continue to wonder why confidence in the government continues to decline.