Residents of the Robert Kochstraat in Badhoevedorp are going crazy over the main road right in front of their house. That road was not yet on the plans when they bought their home, but it is now there and is used intensively.
Badhoevedorp residents are awakened by a dangerous road in front of the door – NH News
The road between the highway and the neighborhood used to be a bit further away. It was then an asphalt road where a maximum speed of 50 kilometers per hour was allowed. Now that that road has been replaced by a 30-kilometre cobblestone road, traffic coming from the highway will go to the center via Robert Kochstraat.
“My seven-year-old child is just shaking on the bike”
“I wouldn’t have moved here otherwise,” local resident Glenn tells NH News. His bedroom is on the side of the road, so he experiences a lot of noise. “When you’re in bed, you hear the traffic whizzing by. You don’t get a good night’s sleep,” he sighs.
Colossi passing each other
But noise pollution is not the only problem. “Traffic does not adhere to the maximum speed”, Chantal Roelofs sees every day. She is concerned for the safety of her children. Just like neighbor Linda Grolle. “There is no bike path anywhere [..] When oncoming traffic comes… My seven-year-old child is just shaking on the bike,” she says.
This is mainly due to trucks that drive through the street at every turn. The drivers have no other option: it is the only route that leads from the highway to the center of Badhoevedorp.
And that causes problems, because the road is actually not wide enough for two trucks next to each other, while the behemoths regularly encounter each other as oncoming traffic. Recently, things went completely wrong when a truck crashed into the parked car of one of the local residents.
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Local residents hope that the municipality of Haarlemmermeer will finally take their complaints seriously. “You want to live quietly and safely. A piece of living pleasure has been taken away from us here and that is painful,” Chantal concludes.
Response of the Municipality of Haarlemmermeer
A spokesperson for the municipality of Haarlemmermeer said in a response to NH Nieuws that “the location of the road was fixed from the start of the plans (2011). This was well before the houses went on sale.” According to the spokesperson, the real estate agent is responsible for the information that residents receive when purchasing a house.
The municipality has entered into talks with residents and has taken a number of measures in the short term to reduce the extra traffic pressure caused by construction work. “In that conversation it was also indicated that some matters cannot be resolved in the long term. But that we continue to keep a close eye on everything, for example through traffic counts.” The municipality does not intend to ban freight traffic from the street.