Their card club, children, acquaintances; they’re all on the other side. And the Admiraal de Ruyter Hospital in Goes, where Annemiek (71) and Guus de Block (70) from Terneuzen also have to go there sometimes. Every time they leave or re-enter Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, they drive through the Western Scheldt tunnel, the only connection to the rest of the country.
Annemiek and Guus recently returned to their birthplace after living in Bergen op Zoom in Brabant for 36 years. At that time they visited many relatives in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, who were inclined to stay there because of the difficult crossing. First with the ferry, which was free shortly after the Second World War. Later through the Western Scheldt tunnel, which Queen Beatrix opened on March 14, 2003. The couple was there then too, on Annemiek’s birthday.
The House of Representatives has been discussing the construction of a tunnel under the Western Scheldt since the 1950s. When it was decided to build it in the 1990s, the people of Zeeland were told: there would be no tunnel without tolls. The costs of 750 million euros had to be recouped within thirty years through tolls.
Take advantage
In Annemiek and Guus’s car there is a T-tag, a black box with toll credit. For years, 3.80 euros and later 3 euros per passage were debited at the toll plaza of the N62 in ‘s-Heerenhoek, on the Walcheren side near the Western Scheldt tunnel. For twenty years, the couple spent three to four hundred euros a year on tolls, they calculate. Occasional passers-by, without a locker, paid five euros. Until this Monday.
Motorists and motorcyclists will be given free passage eight years earlier than planned, because the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management has allocated an amount of 146 million euros. They can drive freely on special lanes for passenger traffic, where they only have to wait until the barrier goes up.
If such a tunnel were in the Randstad, the government would never have charged a toll
Zeeland will benefit significantly from the toll-free tunnel, it turned out independent research commissioned by the Rutte III cabinet in 2021. It was expected that motorists will travel longer distances, allowing them to work further from home, and that the tunnel will have many new users. The study estimated that ten thousand additional journeys will take place through the Western Scheldt tunnel every day, on top of the 15 to 20 thousand daily journeys in recent years. The toll-free tunnel will generate 27 to 39 million euros in welfare gains over ten years, according to the social cost-benefit analysis in the same study.
Oliebollen
For the ceremonial party on Monday, Annemiek and Guus de Block climb the bridge above the toll plaza, between the heaters and champagne glasses. The first Zeelanders whizzed past for free among them. On one of the seven lanes, a procession of motorists from Oldtimer Club Midden Zeeland drives past Deputy Harry van der Maas (Infrastructure, SGP) and Minister Barry Madlener (Infrastructure and Water Management, PVV). As a Member of Parliament, the latter already submitted a motion in 2016 for a toll-free Western Scheldt tunnel.
The duo has been renamed “Harry & Barry” by the ringmaster of the festive ceremony on the bridge. “An oliebollen,” shouts Van der Maas as he hands one to the driver of a vintage car. “You certainly don’t pay road tax!”, Madlener jokes to a woman in the passenger seat of a vintage car.
The last oliebol goes to Peter van Hoeve (65), who drives past in a beige Opel Kadett. He wears a balloon cap, like in the series Peaky Blinders. “They invited us as ‘real Zeelanders’, next to those two bobos,” says Van der Hoeve, a resident of Goes, before he joins the procession. Although his wife works on the other side in Terneuzen, a toll-free Western Scheldt tunnel was not even necessary for Van Hoeve. “So many roads around here have been improved since the tunnel was built. And with tolls you could have built up a nice savings pot to continue with that.”
Critical attitude
A sentiment among other Zeelanders, also this Monday, is that they were disadvantaged by the toll tunnel. “Ridiculous,” growls Jan-Kees Butijn (58), under a small cigar between his lips. He had to pay for a ride from his hometown of Borssele to his daughter in the Zeeland-Flemish town of Axel. “As if we don’t pay road tax? We also use this to help pay for roads in Groningen, for example.” Is he frustrated? “Frustration… we are not used to anything else. If such a tunnel were in the Randstad, the government would never have charged a toll.”
Butijn worked as a firefighter for many years, including during emergencies in the tunnel. Nowadays he works for the Zeeland construction company Sagro, where he sees a truck passing at the toll plaza. “There goes the boss.” His colleague still has to pay at the counter; a lobby for toll-free freight traffic is still ongoing. The cabinet fears that the provincial roads in Zeeland will become very busy, because trucks will then be able to commute between Rotterdam and Ghent without any obstacles.
The De Block couple do not like the critical attitude of fellow Zeelanders. According to them, retailers from Terneuzen who fear loss of business to the ‘mainland’ should work together to make the Zeeland-Flemish city more lively. “Some Zeeland-Flemish people have built a wall around themselves,” says Guus de Block. “But for us this offers so many possibilities, it is liberating.”