Organization
Since 1982 the Environmental
Section in Utrecht is a
part of the Town development Division. The main policy was to give priority to
prevention of environmental problems. So all policy plans and projects should be judged on environmental
effects.
Procedures and tools
In 1986 in the Netherlands
legislation on air quality, based on European
Directives,
became operative. Yearly municipalities had to report about exceedances
of the (temporary raised) limit values and measures to solve and prevent exceedances. In practice for projects this meant there had
to be an advise on air quality based on calculations
for every street with 4.500 or more vehicles per 24 hours in or concerning the
project area.
The national government provided
the municipalities with a calculation model: the CAR-model (Calculation of air
pollution from road traffic). This model is a simple version of the calculation
model from TNO. The RIVM supplies the cities with emissions and background
concentrations.
Land use plans
In land use plans usually
keeping enough distance between traffic and residential areas is the most logic
measure. Sometimes a screen can shorten this distance (eg
Voordorp along the A27 motorway). It is also possible
to make buildings with a completely closed front (eg University College along
the Waterlinieweg).
Building plans
In the case of building plans
the air quality adviser firstly compares the new situation with the other road
sections. Does this building plan have a more unfavourable influence on air
circulation than the buildings at the other road sections? And is this building
plan an undesirable limitation of the road capacity?
If it is, the building plan has
to be changed: no high continuous front close to the road (eg
offices along the Graadt van Roggenweg).
Traffic and infrastructure projects
Traffic and infrastructure
projects are in most cases related to land use plans. New offices and houses
have to be attainable. And there is also an autonomous growth of traffic.
The policy is making low traffic
zones by concentrating traffic on wide roads. In 1986 this was the policy for
traffic and the abatement of noise. If you only focus on the limit values for
air quality diverting traffic to all roads would be the best solution. But
regarding the exposure of the inhabitants and the large individual differences
in sensitivity, it is better to have many streets with a relative good air
quality and a few streets with maximum allowable air pollution. Now 80% of the inhabitants of Utrecht live in low traffic zones.
If a small street is a
connection between wide streets there are several solutions:
- stimulating the use of an alternative route (eg no through traffic in the Voorstraat/
Wittevrouwenstraat),
- no standing traffic in the small street (eg temporary situation with many buses in the Voorstraat/ Wittevrouwenstraat),
- less heavy traffic and buses (buses from a
single to a bus-lane),
- widening the road profile,
- cutting down trees,
- demolishing buildings (eg
two houses at the Martin Luther Kinglaan),
- changing
the use of buildings.
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