Amsterdam council: green light for bike bridge over the IJ to north

Amsterdam city council on Thursday evening voted in favour of the controversial plan to build bicycle-pedestrian bridge linking the city centre with its fast-growing northern flank.

The Javafietsbrug will cross the busy IJ waterway at Java island to the east of the central rail station, news website Nu.nl reported on Friday.

The vote simultaneously opened a can of worms involving the many factions who favour a Java island crossing by tunnel. In fact, the city council is just about the only party involved which backs the bridge. The Java island project will be the first fixed link across the IJ.

No official starting date has been set for the construction of the bridge, nor is there any firm idea of what it will look like. Projected costs are also rather vague at ‘tens of millions’ of euros.

The transport department Rijkswaterstaat, which controls traffic on Dutch waterways, and caretaker infrastructure minister Melanie Schultz are the leading proponents of the tunnel scheme. And since they also control the funding of bridge and tunnel projects in the Netherlands they are not easily dismissed.

‘The proposed bicycle bridge would have to be at least 11.35 metres above the surface of the water. It would be handy to have an electric bike on that bridge,’ Schultz has said.

Schultz also said the bridge would be a hindrance to shipping on the IJ, a viewpoint shared by the port authority which noted that bridges distort radar in foggy weather. Ironically the bridge would have to close several times an hour to allow the passage of ships and yachts higher than 11 metres.