Successful Ascension weekend packed with work

We were able to complete a significant amount of work during the four-day closure of the roads connecting the A4 and the A10 Zuid in the direction of the A10 West/Zaanstad. This started at the De Nieuwe Meer junction, where the TriAX construction consortium (Besix, Dura Vermeer and Heijmans) were able to move the road connecting to the A10 West by 6 m. The road was then rebuilt there a metre lower, in order to create space for the future flyover to the A4 Schiphol/Rotterdam. Some distance away, next to the A10 West, we installed a lot of sheet piling into the ground in preparation for the widening of the road with an extra lane.

But that was far from the end of it. We also closed two lanes on the A10 Zuid, in order to position large cranes there. We then lifted the lifts and prefab concrete stairways into position for the Brittenpassage, the additional passenger tunnel at Amsterdam Zuid station. It was a spectacular sight and nothing less than a milestone. For the first time since we started to build the new passageway in 2019, the railway platforms can now actually be reached from the new passenger tunnel. Above the platforms, we also built a completely new set of overhead wires (the system that powers the trains). The old system did not fit over the new platform roofs that we will be lifting into position in the weekend of 14/15 June 2025.

Although we warned that the additional journey time could be up to an hour, traffic congestion during Ascension weekend remained limited. The delay on the motorways did not exceed 30 minutes and there was no major congestion to speak of on the city road network. For four days, there were also no trains running to and from Amsterdam Zuid station. The reduced train service caused no unexpected or major disruption.

The works at the De Nieuwe Meer junction are part of the widening of the A10 Zuid. In the future, this is to be divided into a main carriageway with four lanes and a new parallel carriageway with two lanes in each direction. The construction of an additional passenger tunnel at Amsterdam Zuid station is necessary because the existing station entrance, the Minervapassage, cannot cope with the growing number of railway and metro passengers.