onreachable

Construction is a theme we can say a lot about. Not only about the construction of new food factories, which this magazine is full of, but also about road construction.
And that is what I want to talk about, because lots of things can go wrong in the planning and execution. 

In Velp, the Gelderland village near Arnhem where our office is located, sometimes requires maintenance to the road network. And that affected us greatly. On 8 January, the trunk road in front of our building was closed. For a whopping 4 months... 

To make matters worse, it was decided to also close the approach route to the A12 via the Schelmseweg. About 14,000 cars used this route weekly. This made it almost impossible to enter or leave our picturesque village. Nice and efficient: sending everyone across the already super-busy Velperbroekcircuit. It resulted in lots of traffic jams. 

There was an alternative: an additional detour, straight through the neighbouring village of Rozendaal, a 30 km/h zone with a nice narrow road. Drivers were anything but happy. And you guessed it, one speed camera and the entire budget for the road network can be recovered.

Fortunately, these road works are now over. The roads are open again. A fully new sewer system has been constructed, there is beautiful asphalt with wide bicycle lanes and a roundabout, and traffic flows nicely through green Velp once again. 

But then, fierce thunderstorms and rain. Wide mud rivers flow through the new street, the new sewer system can’t handle it... What went wrong here?

Saskia Stender