30 October 2011

Future Amsterdam ~ New Construction Continues!

DutchAmsterdam's piece on the recent reopening of the main entrance to Amsterdam Centraal Station -- the rail-bus-ferry-tram-bike-metro passenger superhub -- inspired my deeper interest in both the longer term development of the city and the ultra-challenging recent efforts. First, this nice timelapse map of Amsterdam's growth over centuries... The latest development is the construction of the Noord/Zuidlijn of the Metro, a tremendously difficult effort with muddy, sandy soil, risk of subsidence, and the fact that most current transit activities and 250K passengers per day have to keep using the facility! (FYI, they even have a progress map showing Here We Are Now) At the same time, the coordinating parties involved -- the City of Amsterdam, ProRail infrastructure, and NS Dutch Railways operator -- decided to massively upgrade the Centraal "Island" adding a new bus and ferry port, cleaning up the connection to the city, and upgrading the interior connective spaces massively. These construction videos are just great and give a taste for what's involved... Finally, here (in Dutch) are the Centraal masterplan visions... And more about the new Metro line...

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