Raad VenW

Spatial development is high on the political agenda. Until recently, the responsibility for the living environment quality belonged to the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM). Now other Ministries are expected to lend a hand. In practice, however, this is complex and the compartmentalisation difficult to overcome. With the addition of the spatial component to MIT1 (MIRT2) and the introduction of regional agendas, a major step has been taken towards integrated spatial development. As follow-up to these changes, the Advisory Council for Transport, Public Works and Water Management (RVW) intends for this advisory report to provide recommendations on content and procedures to government bodies (central, provincial and municipal) that jointly have the task of bringing spatial development to fruition.

Investing in construction, utilisation and road pricing will not be enough to improve mobility in the Randstad, the highly urbanised western part of the Netherlands. Extra capacity on roads and railways may eliminate or relieve well-known bottlenecks, but will not automatically make the traffic and transport network less vulnerable to disruptions. That is why the Advisory Council for Transport, Public Works and Water Management advocates making road and rail networks more robust so that they can cope with disruptions. This is achievable by such means as buffers, diversions, faster accident cleanups and provision of alternative modes of transport. This document puts forward recommendations for robust networks and suggestions for policy and governance with a view to tackling sensitivity to incidents.

In this advice the Advisory Council for Transport, Public Works and Water Management calls for attention to opportunities for strengthening the position of the Netherlands through active and broad-based European regional collaboration between those parts of the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany that show a strong economic coherence. The areas in question in the three countries together comprise the economic core area in continental Northwest Europe, referred to by the working title of “Eurodelta” in this document. The Council believes that wider European regional collaboration in fields such as economic development, spatial planning, construction and maintenance of infrastructure facilities, traffic, transport and logistics may lead to a win-win situation for all three countries involved.