How do we build a flyover in a junction?

Van den Ham points towards a construction drawing on the wall of his office at the TriAX construction consortium (Besix, Dura Vermeer and Heijmans), responsible for the reconstruction of the De Nieuwe Meer junction and for building the new flyover: ‘It starts here next to Joy Jaagpad tennis park and Zuid Cirkel business complex and bends across four roads towards the A4 in the direction of Schiphol/Rotterdam.’ Before the flyover is complete in 2028, we will be hard at work at the busy junction building two abutments and nine pillars that will ultimately support more than 300 m of road surface. So, how are we approaching it?

Both at the start next to Joy Jaagpad tennis park and at the end, the flyover will be supported by an abutment, a large concrete support that spreads the weight of the flyover across solid ground. You usually build an abutment on piles and large quantities of sand to absorb all of the forces, but we do not have enough space next to the tennis park. Van den Ham: ‘This is why we’ve used a lot of foundation piles as reinforcement to create a piled embankment with a reinforced soil structure on top of it. The abutment goes on top of that.’

Between the abutments, we are building nine pillars, spread across the junction. ‘The pillars will consist of foundations with columns on top. On top of that, there’ll be massive concrete girders to provide overall stability, even when there’s a lot of traffic driving over’, explains Van den Ham. These girders weigh up to 204 tonnes and are too large to build in situ without causing disruption and are therefore being prefabricated in Friesland. ‘They can’t be transported by road, because there are some bridges en route that cannot support the weight. They’ll therefore be arriving by ship at our work site on the south side of the Schinkelbrug bridge.’ When they have been transferred onto a special barge, they need to go underneath the bridge to reach the different construction sites, which Van den Ham says is only just possible: ‘There’ll be just a few centimetres remaining between the girder and the Schinkelbrug.’

View the overview of the major disruption we expect in 2025. Here is a list of the most frequently asked questions about the summer works on and around the A10 Zuid, raised during the information meeting held on 15 April.

As the conversation reaches its close, Van den Ham reveals a 4D animation: ‘We’re now focusing on building pillar 5. We want to have it ready before the five-day closure in Ascension week at the end of May.’ That is when his colleagues in road construction will be moving the existing intersection leading to the A10 West slightly in the direction of the fifth pillar, to create space for the sixth pillar 30 m further on. Van den Ham smiles and continues: ‘Both sets of works were planned three years ago. When we do the work, it will be almost exactly three years to the day.’