The Goudsesingel in Rotterdam is a wide, gray street. High blocks of houses, with shops and coffee shops on the street, which also function as workplaces. A two-lane road for cars and cyclists, with an asphalted tram track in the middle. In addition, a service road with two parking lanes. A row of trees in a bed between the parking spaces. The rest is stone. Not a street where you want to linger for long.
But if it were up to the municipality, water would soon ripple through the Goudsesingel (again). In a letter to the municipal council at the end of October, Alderman Outdoor Space Pascal Lansink-Bastemeijer (VVD) talked about a ‘sponge park’, with wadis (a kind of pits) and ditches to collect, retain and purify excess water with filters. The construction of sponge parks and canals should prevent streets from becoming flooded in times of increasingly heavy rainfall. Trees and other greenery can provide coolness in increasingly hot summers.
Water once flowed in many places, but canals and canals were filled in to make room for traffic
A sketch in the letter shows what the paved street could look like: instead of asphalt, a wide green strip, with sports and play areas. Next to the water walking paths. The Goudsesingel as a green boulevard, between the center and Crooswijk, on the east side of Rotterdam.
It is an idea of VVD councilor Marike Abrahamse, who two years ago requested a study into the construction of canals to make the city both more climate-proof and more attractive. In many places in Rotterdam, canals and canals were filled in to make room for traffic. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Goudsesingel was closed in phases. The Coolsingel, Blaak and Schiekade followed.
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‘More robust’
The Teilingerstraat, a stony street in North Rotterdam not far from Central Station, could also be significantly greened. Councilor Bastemeijer writes that a canal can be constructed there, with green banks and bridges. This would connect the Provenierssingel and the Noordsingel, he writes. “That ensures a more robust water system.”
It is not said that exactly these water features will be constructed. This is an exploratory study that is part of a larger and more ambitious plan, called Green Water City 2025, to make Rotterdam significantly greener over the next 25 years. During that period, an additional 1,000 hectares of green and blue (water) would have to be created in the city – think of 1,400 football fields.
A big task, but a necessary one. And not just to make the city resistant to climate change. The number of residents in Rotterdam is growing, especially in the center where one residential tower after another is rising. All those Rotterdam residents need space to spend time outside and recreate.
The beginning has already been made. Floating parks are being constructed in the Rijnhaven on the south side of the Nieuwe Maas. A large hillside park will be built in the Maashaven, for which the harbor will be partly filled in. Work is underway on the new car-free and green Hofplein. The most daring is the plan to turn the Nieuwe Maas into an elongated ‘Central Park’, with wide, green banks. A lot of space must be made available on and next to the river for sports, recreation and catering.
Landscape architects
The ‘singel plan 2.0’ is also part of the greening plan. Examples include the Catharijnesingel in Utrecht, which was filled in in the 1970s and transformed into a busy motorway, straight through the center of the city. This canal was reopened five years ago: people now walk and have lunch on the banks, and when the weather is nice the water that has been returned is full of boats.
In the search for the most obvious Rotterdam streets to start with, Goudsesingel and Teilingerstraat came to the fore.
Yet it seems simpler than it is, as was evident at the end of last week at the City Makers Congress, where civil servants, including urban planners and landscape architects, exchanged ideas. Sewers, pipes and tree roots run in the ground. Alternatives must be found for cars (both driving and parked) and trams before streets can be made car-free.
The ‘city makers’ who discussed the canal plan at the conference saw great potential in the Goudsesingel and Teilingerstraat
Nevertheless, the group of ‘city makers’ (whose names were not recorded at the request of the organization), who discussed the canal plan at the conference, saw the potential of the Goudsesingel and Teilingerstraat. There is no subway flooded, pipes and sewers can be moved. It is a shame to only think about the long term, said , “it is best to start small.”
Exactly, says another ‘city maker’. “You put puzzle pieces in the large underlying greening plan.”
“And don’t forget the support. We have to explain the benefits to the people of Rotterdam,” says an official.
“If you start with the construction of one canal,” says another ‘city maker’, “an abstract plan becomes tangible. Rotterdam residents can then see how beautiful it can be. And they automatically become enthusiastic.”
Artist impression of the Goudsesingel after greening.
Illustration Flux Landscape
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