Silence on the main road – silence, right? – and then the sirens. Six ambulances, two trauma helicopters, multiple fire and police cars. Kamal Bergman was already in the front yard, the neighbor next door, when a neighbor from further away texted: “Around the corner, in the bend.”

“Again,” Bergman said.

The neighbor nodded. “Again.”

On Saturday afternoon, June 8, three cars collided on the road along the Apeldoorns Kanaal near Laag-Soeren. Eight victims, including four minors. A six-year-old child died.

After the silence comes the noise. At the monthly consultation afternoon of the Provincial States in the hall of the Provincial House in Arnhem, residents and local interest groups expressed their dissatisfaction on Wednesday 26 June about the safety situation on Kanaal Zuid, an 80 kilometre long road parallel to the Apeldoorns canal that runs eighteen kilometres southwards from Apeldoorn via Loenen and Eerbeek to Dieren. With gentle bends, many intersections, thick trees along the road and a merciless canal.

Three years ago, NRC wrote about the many accidents on the road between Apeldoorn and Dieren. “Caution is paramount,” said a spokesperson for the municipality at the time. What is it like now?

The nickname of the route is not for nothing ‘the death road’, the chairman of Wijkplatform Dieren Noordoost remembered that afternoon. In the past six years alone, ‘a hundred serious accidents’ have taken place, with seven fatalities. ‘The time for talking is over.’ Measures must be taken, a member of Kanaal Zuid Natuurlijk Veilig also said. Come on, lower the maximum speed to 60 kilometers per hour. ‘How long does this all take?! Where there’s a will… there’s a way!’

During that meeting, 25 kilometers further along the canal, things went wrong again. Two cars completely crushed, one almost in the water. This time near Loenen. The occupants remained unharmed.

Three days later: van crashes into tree, near Loenen. Driver slightly injured. Five days later: head-on collision of two cars, near Laag-Soeren. Drivers unharmed. Six days after that: collision with injured people near Eerbeek. Two injured. Six days after that, July 16: rear-end collision near Lieren. Slightly injured. All on those eighteen kilometers of asphalt.

The dangerous road runs eighteen kilometers from Apeldoorn south via Loenen and Eerbeek to Dieren.

Three governments

Where there is a will there is a way?

As far as the residents are concerned, yes. Kamal Bergman moved with his partner from the Randstad to a house on the canal near Laag-Soeren, in the middle of the Veluwe, three years ago. The child who died in the accident is the third death he has experienced in the neighbourhood and, like his neighbours, he can’t wait for action to be taken. Traffic now drives past his house at breakneck speed, mirrors regularly hit the thick native oaks that grow right next to the road. There is no cycle path on his side of the canal and his partner is often “sworn at and honked at” when he cycles out of the driveway.

On Kanaal Zuid, an adjustment is not easily arranged. The route is managed by three authorities – Brummen, Apeldoorn and the province of Gelderland – each responsible for its own section. When the municipality of Apeldoorn reduced the speed on its section from 80 to 60 kilometres per hour as a trial in 2021 after three fatal accidents in a short period of time, the reduction was prematurely reversed. According to the appeals committee, the trial had not been prepared “sufficiently carefully”.

All ’60’ signs along the road have been replaced by ’80’.

There are multiple interests at stake in the region. The road is used by trucks from the Eerbeek paper industry, public transport and emergency services. And the road runs through two nature reserves. According to the calculation models, adjusting the speed elsewhere will lead to more traffic, and therefore nitrogen deposition. In addition, lowering the speed on Kanaal Zuid would increase the rat run in the village centre of Loenen by 10 percent. Unsafe for crossing pedestrians and cyclists.

Residents tied seat belts around trees known to have been the site of accidents. Photo Bram Petraeus

The government decided to weigh the interests “integrally”. “Clarity in 2022”, according to a spokesperson for the municipality, but that turned out not to be feasible. The government drew up a ‘Course Note Part 1’ in which “all traffic and liveability issues” were included. At the end of 2022, a ‘Reaction Note’ followed in which the reactions of stakeholders were included – 32 in total – and a ‘Progress Note’ was published. Expected early 2023: a decision in the autumn. That did not work out either, partly due to a change of project leader at the province.

New goal: the package of measures in the Policy Note part 2 next fall and then the nitrogen calculations. And then the decision.

Indeed, patience. But the will is there, and so is the way, assure civil servants involved in the project. Only in the Netherlands in 2024, with its complex legislation and many interests per square kilometre, it will still take some searching to find that way.

Working on the project daily

The civil servants, a group of four, are explaining the puzzle on the second floor of the Provincial House in Arnhem, where they have just completed a biweekly meeting on the Policy Note. Jeannette Kuipers, traffic expert at the municipality of Apeldoorn. Traffic expert Tonny Slieker and project leader Albert Joosse, both from the province of Gelderland. And Hans Noordman, project leader at the municipality of Brummen.

They can well imagine the impatience of the citizen. They also hear about the accidents. Through the news, apps and e-mails from concerned citizens. Jeannette Kuipers has been monitoring this file for 24 years and knows almost all the residents personally. When there are serious accidents, such as when a child died on June 8, the officials inform their driver.

But for them it doesn’t feel like waiting, says Albert Joosse. “We work on this project every day. I estimate that I spend half my working week on it.”

“Reduce speed immediately,” they hear every time after a serious accident. From citizens and also from Veilig Verkeer Nederland, which calls the road “unsafe”. But the authorities are condemned to each other. That became clear when the municipality of Apeldoorn tried it in 2021 with the speed reduction test. They were immediately whistled back by other stakeholders who filed an objection.

Is it the road or the road user?

Tonny Slieker traffic expert

That test did make it clear that a speed reduction alone is not enough. “People continued to drive faster than 70,” says Jeannette Kuipers. “So you will also have to adjust the road layout.”

And has the acute necessity actually been demonstrated? “In far from all accidents the cause is clear,” says Tonny Slieker. “Is it the road or the road user?”

The Canal Route is not very “forgiving”, he agrees. Because of the water and the many trees close to the road. “As a road designer, you take into account that a road user can sometimes leave the carriageway and then you don’t want it to end fatally.” But whether the road is actually less safe than other provincial roads is difficult to measure because of its “exceptional” characteristics.

Nitrogen legislation

Cutting down trees, you could say. That is also stated in the advisory report that was published in 2022 on behalf of the municipalities of Apeldoorn and Brummen. Without trees, the road can be widened and a cycle path can fit. But cutting down trees is a sensitive issue in the Netherlands, says Hans Noordman. “Certainly when it concerns large, old oaks that are iconic, like here.” Local residents would rather keep them and when the municipality of Brummen started cutting them down a few years ago, local nature lovers protested. Woohoo, another report, about bats. “Protected species live in the trees.”

With the recent nitrogen legislation, the puzzle has become even more complex, says Slieker. Because every measure you take on Kanaal Zuid causes a shift in traffic and new deposition calculations have to be made for that. “I know of a project where widening a cycle path is not possible, because it produces extra nitrogen.” And if you tinker with one road, it has consequences for the other, says Noordman. “It is one big waterbed.” For Kanaal Zuid, nitrogen calculations also have to be made for two nature reserves and for the construction and use phase. “So two times two calculations.”

Is nitrogen above safety, they often hear the citizen shout. “Well, we are not above the law either,” says Joosse. “As a government, you have to adhere to the nitrogen guidelines. Otherwise you will be whistled back by the judge and it will all take even longer.”

Read also

Article from 2021: Along ‘the road of death’, residents wait for the next blow

No, the only way to solve the puzzle, says Jeannette Kuipers, is to find “a balance” together and “accept that this will take a number of years”. That means taking into account the quality of life and the fact that every stakeholder, from local residents to industry, has a different interpretation of the concept of quality of life. Because does safety come before accessibility, employment before nature? When the civil servants send out a mailing about the Canal Route dossier, they now put some 25 to 30 interest groups in the cc. “From village councils to the Cyclists’ Union.” They are all consulted and invited to respond to the reports and, if necessary, file objections.

“Everything in consultation, that’s the Netherlands,” say the civil servants. “And thank goodness for that.” Although they also notice that the voices of interest groups become louder after each accident. As a result, they sometimes spend more time answering critical questions from concerned citizens to aldermen and members of parliament than solving the traffic puzzle itself. “Well, that’s part of it.”

‘NOMR’, is what resident Kamal Bergman calls the whole situation now. ‘Not on my way.’ He just hopes that the authorities can make a decision. ‘If you can’t get a speed reduction in the Netherlands, what else can you do?’

Share Email the editors