Motorists on the Bovenkerkerweg will soon no longer need to apply the brakes past the intersection with the Zagerij. The municipality is taking advantage of the doubling of the traffic artery between Amstelveen and Uithoorn, which has been planned for some time, to put an end to the recurring subsidence. The poplars along the road are the culprit and are therefore being cut down, but the maximum speed – now 30 km/h due to the bad road surface – can be increased to 50 km/h again.
The Bovenkerkerweg between the Beneluxbaan and the Nesserlaan is plagued over a distance of more than a kilometer by subsidence, which keeps recurring. The road has always been patched up so far, but the municipality has now decided to solve the problem structurally.
That happens with a – as alderman Floor Gordon puts it a press release – ‘very painful, but nevertheless necessary measure’: cutting down the poplars along the road. Those trees absorb so much water that the peat dyke collapses and the Bovenkerkerweg continues to subside a little further, resulting in cracks and holes.
At the end of June shovel into the ground
Ultimately, the entire route between the Beneluxbaan and the Nesserlaan will be smoothed out, but contractor BAM will start work on the west side of the section between the Zagerij and Grand Hotel Amstelveen at the end of this month. Motorists are still being warned there about the bad road surface and admonished to reduce speed.
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It is no coincidence that the subsidence is being tackled now, of all places: it has been planned for some time to double the Bovenkerkerweg – now still a single carriageway. This is because with the construction of homes in De Scheg and Legmeer and the development of the Amstelveen-Zuid business park, much more traffic will use the road.
More suitable trees and herbs
The poplars that are felled are replaced by trees that absorb less water and are therefore more suitable for a peat dike. On the advice of independent experts, these will be columnar elms, birches and Norway maples. They will not be planted in exactly the same places as the current poplars, but between the cycle path and the road.
Furthermore, between the hotel and the Beneluxbaan, ‘various groups of trees and shrubs are planted in groups with herb-rich undergrowth, which promotes biodiversity’.
The restoration of the entire northern part of Bovenkerkerweg will take until 2026 and will be carried out in phases. At the height of the work, traffic will be directed in both directions over one half of the road. An information evening about the activities between the hotel and the Zagerij will follow soon.