Route design A4
The construction and modification of the transport infrastructure is more often surrounded with embarrassment than with pride. Rijkswaterstaat, the section of the Dutch ministry of transport concerned with roads and waterways, hopes to correct this tarnished image with its Route Design strategy. The goal of Route Design is to develop a coherent vision for motorways, for the environment and for the relations between them.
The A4 may be summed up as a motorway through the Rhine/Schelde Delta, connecting three major international ports; Schiphol Airport and seaports of Rotterdam and Antwerpen. As well as this geographical identity, it features an alternation of highly urbanized areas with open polder landscapes. The route design for the A4 entails desiderata for the environment and guidelines for the design of the motorway. Also proposals for implementation are given.
Desiderata for the environment:
The contrasts (between highly urbanized areas and open polder landscapes) should be accentuated, so keeping a distinction between the acceleration zones and stabilization zones. Another foundation, contact, is elaborated in proposals for improvement of the landscape and for urban cross-relationships over and under the motorway.
Guidelines for the motorway:
The guidelines for the motorway can be reduced to three principles: anticipating future development, sustainability of the design and its use and visual concept of the motorway as ‘a river’. Taking the river as a guiding image, we have developed design principles aimed at, firstly, enhancing the dynamic quality of this linear landscape, and, secondly, at enabling and reinforcing the cross-relations over and under this “river”.
