With the reopening of the Vrijheidsplein in Groningen, ring road builder Combinatie Herepoort will be almost ready on Saturday on the western part of the new Southern Ring Road.
Chief executor Edwin Horinga from Oldekerk and cluster manager Johan Zijlstra from the city thinks it’s a strange idea. The long series of major projects on the west side of the city will come to an end on Saturday on Freedom Square with the opening of the spectacular traffic arch from Ring West towards Julianaplein.
This means that all main roads on the western part of the ring road are as good as ready. “Next week we will asphalt a section of the northbound lane that traffic from Assen to Drachten will use from May 6.”
Showers make for an exciting Wednesday
Two days before the opening they are still in suspense. On the southbound lane of the road, which road users use on King’s Day (they can only go to Assen, not yet across Julianaplein to Hoogezand), there are four large asphalt machines. Right next to each other they lay the last two (of 5) layers of asphalt, a total of about 30 centimeters thick.
The top layer looks beautiful, but before a car can go over it, it still needs to have stripes and arrows on it. The Dutch Road Marking Company (NWM) from Oosterwolde, Friesland, only succeeds when the road is dry. Jet black clouds with rain and hail alternate between blue sky and sun… It seems as if every new shower is headed for the road markers.
Turning asphalt works, but road markings appear poorly
Horinga (active for Combinatie Herepoort since December 2016) and Zijlstra (since 2019) were lucky with the weather for years, but have been struggling with extreme rainfall since the autumn.
Last Saturday, when Ring West was closed for another asphalt job, the weather was also bad. This does not make much difference for milling away old asphalt and installing plants, lighting and signage (in addition to Groningen South there is now also a Groningen Corpus exit).
But when it rains all day, you cannot make marks, Horinga knows. He sees by noon on Wednesday that everything will turn out fine. A robot from the Geomaat surveying agency quickly draws a dotted line on the still warm zoab layer. “If it dries for two hours, things can still go quickly.”
Water does remain on fresh zoab
Horinga: “The men from NWM draw stripes along the dotted lines of white ‘paint’ with reflective glass beads with their spray machine. The lines themselves are dry and ready to ride in no time. But the asphalt must be dry, otherwise the marking will not adhere.”
Waiting for warmer and dry weather is not an option this week. Executor Gosse Wouda therefore brings in a special drying machine. It blows away the water with warm air. The warm asphalt does the rest and when the sun comes out after the umpteenth shower (and break…), the road markers quickly take effect.
Water on zoab seems remarkable because very open asphalt concrete is known for the fact that no rainwater remains on it. “That is why it is so safe and pleasant,” says Horinga. “But when you apply zoab, there is first a greasy layer of bitumen on it that no water can penetrate. Cars have to remove that layer first.”
Once the drying machine has done its work, the road markers take effect. Horinga enjoys it. “They turn a large slab of asphalt into a real road.”
‘Things have been going fast for 5 years’
The ring builders have been hearing from road users and local residents for some time that things are moving quickly. “Fine,” says Zijlstra. “But behind the scenes, things have been going just as fast for five years. All this time we have been working towards this moment when all the pieces of the puzzle come together and we can put the road into use.”
Herepoort widened the A7/N7 between Hoogkerk and the Noord-Willemskanaal with extra lanes and entrance and exit ramps. Viaducts were renovated or widened: installed on site or ready-made. A completely new viaduct has been built above the Paterswoldseweg.
In the City Park they raised and widened the Western Ring Road. Two new viaducts were built to make the intersection at Martiniplaza and the ancient roundabout on Vrijheidsplein grade-separated. There was little space. Traffic has continued all these years, sometimes with a slight detour, and has been blocked in recent weeks during Operation Ring South.
After the opening of the main road network, the builders will remain busy finishing the ‘underlying road network’ until December. For example, they are permanently redesigning the bot roundabout in Laan Corpus den Hoorn (with all those red-white blocks). To complete that job, the horseshoe bend will be closed for a few months and the City Park will temporarily have one-way traffic.
More of this is happening this year
Next week, Horinga and Zijlstra will also attack the intersection of Concourslaan near the Gasunie building, where there will no longer be a barrier. They want to reopen the cycle route between City Park and Victory Square over Freedom Square before the construction holiday.
Herepoort will restore the old situation in various places (Laan van de Vrede, Donderslaan) and there will be a new Exhibition Avenue to Martiniplaza and the Mercure Hotel from the Paterswoldseweg. It will be redesigned under the viaduct.
“This year we also have to clear a lot of temporary pieces of asphalt, remove the construction sites and the information center and clean up all the depots and construction chain. We go from large to small: from four large asphalt machines to a cycle path machine. From 4.5 kilometers of highway to a hundred meters of local road. That seems like a different sport, but that work deserves just as much attention. And technically, small sections of road are just as structured as large ones.”
