This question only focuses on vehicle traffic. However, a mobility solution demands action on various fronts:

• clustering of goods transport
• making maximum use of transport by inland waterway
• efforts related to making use of public transport
• encouraging cycling
• avoiding and reducing movements by integrating living, working and facilities as far as possible

Clustering of goods transport

Blue Gate Antwerp provides a smart logistics zone specifically for goods transport. The purpose of this zone is to cluster goods from the industrial area, but equally so from the surrounding companies and industrial sites as much as possible. This can cut the number of trucks on the road.

What is more, an urban distribution centre will be set up in the logistics area that will bundle the distribution of goods in and out of the city. Environmentally friendly vehicles will also be used to transport goods in and out of the city. All of this is about to become a reality. Contracts have already been concluded with private partners, such as Van Moer (logistics company) and CityDepot (urban distribution).

This logistics zone will be developed first (2018-2019), so that transport and distribution capabilities will be ready before the rest of the development.

Maximum use of transport by inland waterway

A new quay wall was already constructed at Blue Gate Antwerp in 2015. This quay wall will be used optimally for transporting goods by water. It will also be used during the redevelopment for the supply and removal of earth and building materials. After the redevelopment, it will also be used for the supply of raw materials and output of end products.

Businesses that already exist at Blue Gate Antwerp are currently actively encouraged to increase transportation of goods across the water.

Blue Gate Antwerp is perfectly equipped for this, by way of a jetty for supply and discharge of liquids. Until now, these have taken the form of fossil fuels and oils.

The loading and unloading of bulk goods has also been taking place via the new quay wall. Q8 will increase its transport capacity over water and ATAB has already made investments to ramp up its transport via the water.

The major financial input demanded for constructing this new quay wall offers the ultimate benefit that more goods are moved through the inland waterways. That means fewer trucks on the road!

There are initiatives under development for transporting people across the water as well, such as, in particular, use of the water bus. A pilot project is underway in the port of Antwerp.

Focus on the use of public transport

The train station in Hoboken is getting some attention and, as part of the A-gen suburban network, the frequency of trains to Antwerp departing from Hoboken will double. From December, there will be 2 trains per hour instead of 1. Frequency will be increased over weekends as well.

The number of parking bays at the station will be increased and improved (67 to 120 places), and a covered bicycle storage facility will be built (from 72 to 224 places).

It is the city’s aim to provide a tram on Emiel Vloorstraat with a return loop for the Herenpolder bridge. This will allow bus 1 and/or 13 later to drive through BGA and along Nieuw Zuid. This option is currently being looked into.

Work is underway on a system in which payment for public transport can be done with only 1 ticket.

 Encouraging cycling

A new stretch of cycling highway will be built, creating a connection between the cycle path along the quays and the Hoboken station. The Kruger bridge will be replaced with a cycle bridge. There will be improved cycling connections to the Jef van Linden cycle path and the district centre of Hoboken. A Velo station with 36 locks has recently been opened at the station as well. When Knoop Zuid is redeveloped, the Roads and Traffic Administration (AWV) will also invest in better (i.e. more comfortable and safer) cycle infrastructure.

Avoiding and reducing home-work traffic

Blue Gate Antwerp will become an industrial area within cycling distance of Hoboken centre, Kiel, Polderstad and the city centre of Antwerp. The Blue Gate Antwerp development will create 1,200 extra jobs within cycling distance. This will avoid unnecessary home-work traffic.

The Flemish Region (Roads and Traffic Administration, AWV) is investigating the redevelopment of the “spaghettiknoop” (i.e. the connection of the Bolivar tunnel with the A12 and the ring road) to specifically address current problems at the Herenpolder bridge. This new interchange (Knoop Zuid) not only covers the actual redevelopment of the interchange as such, but also that of the surrounding intersections, which includes the intersection of E. Vloorstraat, St. Bernardsesteenweg and K. Silvertoplaan as well as the on- and off-ramps of the interchange.

The redevelopment of both the interchange and surrounding intersections will result in a better throughflow and therefore handling of traffic, which in turn will positively affect the underlying traffic flows, as well as the Herenpolder bridge.

What is more, there are three entrances to the site, namely the Scheldt river (inland shipping!), the intersection at Schroeilaan and the intersection with G. Armstrongweg. Local road infrastructure at Blue Gate Antwerp stimulates the use of the northern decongestion and more specifically the junction onto G. Armstrongweg. The design for the redevelopment of the “spaghettiknoop” allows for traffic to be easily handled on the higher roads (R1).

The Blue Gate development will unfold in phases. A wave of traffic will not be moving towards Blue Gate from one day to the next. Mobility will be monitored and adjustments made throughout the whole development process. This will be to ensure that Polderstad, but also the rest of Hoboken, remains accessible and is troubled as little as possible by rat-running. From the start of the project until such time as the project has reached cruising speed, 10 intersections will be tackled. In a nutshell, once the project is in full swing all the mobility interventions will have been made as well.