More money should go to the infrastructure in the Northern Netherlands, believe several parties in the House of Representatives. Although the Cabinet recently announced that it will invest 7.5 billion euros in roads, rails and cycle paths, only a small part of this will go to the northern infrastructure.
The CDA, PvdA, ChristenUnie, JA21 and BBB, among others, want this to change.
The North is ‘significantly underserved’, says CDA member Harry van der Molen. Only four percent of the total investments ends up in Groningen, Drenthe and Friesland, he emphasizes. He thinks that the Cabinet points to the plans for the Lely line, a railway line that runs from Lelystad to Groningen, is insufficient: “With a bit of luck, it will only be there in ten years.”
Habtamu de Hoop of the PvdA calls the distribution ‘too unfair’. CU Member of Parliament Stieneke van der Graaf focuses on another railway line and advocates the construction of the Lower Saxony line, which should run from Groningen via Emmen to Enschede.
The parties also believe that more attention should be paid to the route between Zwolle and Meppel. This route takes an average of nine hours a week, while that rail connection is the only train route to the North. JA21 and BBB want the cabinet to allocate an extra 75 million euros for this, the CDA is also in favor of a larger investment in this part of the track.
Nevertheless, Minister Mark Harbers and State Secretary for Infrastructure Vivianne Heijnen defend the choice to make 65 percent of the investments in the Randstad and 35 percent outside it. Most homes will be built in the Randstad in the coming years, they emphasize. Those houses must be accessible by both car and train, which requires good roads and public transport connections. That is why a ‘major intervention’ is needed there, according to Harbers.
For example, Heijnen ‘had to swallow a bit, to say the least’ when she saw how much money is being allocated, for example, to extend the North-South line in Amsterdam. A total of 5.4 billion euros will be invested in the Amsterdam region, 4.1 billion of which will be paid by the government.