Due to road works on the Westzeedijk and the failure to close part of that road, there was a huge traffic chaos on the arterial road that runs through Rotterdam on Monday morning. Visitors and patients of the Erasmus MC could hardly leave the parking garage.
Work is underway on the tram tracks on the Westzeedijk. A little further on are large trucks. The road between the Vasteland and the Droogleever Fortuynplein will be asphalted again. Traffic wardens had been at Erasmus MC since seven o’clock in the morning, but could not prevent the situation from becoming chaotic.
The road to the Erasmus was not closed off. As a result, in the morning it was packed with cars at the traffic lights next to the Erasmus MC parking garage. People wanted to drive in the direction of the Droogleever Fortuynplein, but that is not possible. That is why they had to turn around, while cars were driving towards the center from the other direction. Another part had to turn to the parking garage of the Erasmus MC and there were also people who wanted to get out of the garage. It was so crowded that some motorists were stuck for over an hour.
Erasmus could not do anything about it, but took several measures to get visitors out of the garage as quickly as possible. “There are traffic controllers and the barriers are open. Normally when you have paid your ticket, you have to drive out within twenty minutes, but that is now unlimited.”
The long wait was quite frustrating. “A hospital and municipality that ‘lock up’ hundreds (or more) patients for hours in a parking garage. That’s a good example,” one of them said on social media.
Erasmus MC had already warned visitors on its website about extra travel time due to work. There will be work on the Westzeedijk until 16 October.