Rijkswaterstaat, the Dutch agency responsible for the national road and waterway network, closed the two regular lanes of the A15 motorway towards Maasvlakte on the western Suurhoffbrug from 16 September 2026, the bridge over the Hartelkanaal built in 1974. The decision was taken after an inspection found cracks in one of the structure’s main beams, with direct consequences for its stability and load-bearing capacity. All traffic is using the hard shoulder. Rijkswaterstaat said that a speed or weight restriction, initially considered as a possible option, was not deemed sufficient to reduce the load on the damaged beam.
Navigation on the canal below is not affected by the measure, while traffic travelling from Maasvlakte towards Rotterdam continues to use the eastern carriageway, the twin bridge opened in 2021 and already designed to carry traffic in both directions. In the coming weeks, the agency plans to adapt the eastern bridge for two-way traffic, an operation requiring changes to road signs, lane markings and traffic management systems. Until then, the restriction on the western Suurhoffbrug is expected to remain in place for four to eight weeks, according to Rijkswaterstaat’s latest estimate; full replacement of the 1974 bridge remains scheduled for 2031-2032.
Maasvlakte is one of the city’s most important port areas, and 36,500 vehicles cross the Suurhoff complex every day, including 15,500 commercial vehicles. Rijkswaterstaat initially estimated an additional delay of 20-30 minutes on the route from Europoort to Maasvlakte, but on Thursday 17 September queues reached 12 kilometres, with journey times extended by more than an hour at certain times of day. Transport en Logistiek Nederland (TLN), the Dutch road haulage and logistics association, estimates that an average half-hour delay costs the sector around EUR600,000 a day, a figure also cited by Deltalinqs, which represents companies in the Rotterdam port area. "Does it ever end?", asked TLN president Elisabeth Post, describing the Suurhoffbrug not as just any bridge but as the main access route to Maasvlakte: "the logistics heart of the Netherlands and Europe’s most important port".
Regional politicians have also reacted: South Holland provincial councillor Jeroen van Dijken pointed to a lack of investment as the cause of crises such as this one. TLN, for its part, considers the EUR1.5 billion allocated by the Government for major maintenance to be insufficient, compared with a requirement that the Ministerie van Infrastructuur en Waterstaat (Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management) itself had estimated at around EUR80 billion through to 2040. The Suurhoffbrug is not the first such case this summer: since 18 July 2026, the Merwedebrug on the A27, between Gorinchem and Sleeuwijk, has been closed to lorries and buses because the steel in its arch structure was found to be less resistant than expected, a different technical cause from the fatigue cracking that had already led to a temporary ban on commercial vehicles on the same bridge in 2016. During the same period, the Hardenbergerbrug on the A28, near Nijkerk, was also closed for several days as a precaution.
The problem is broader still, because in April 2025 Rijkswaterstaat identified 13 bridges and viaducts, built between 1957 and 1969, as being at risk of hydrogen embrittlement in their prestressing steel, following the collapse of the Carolabrug in Dresden, Germany. For those bridges, the agency recommended replacement within five years, but a second opinion by TNO, TU Delft and TU Eindhoven ruled out any immediate safety risk or need for traffic restrictions.
The Government explicitly links the Suurhoffbrug case to the broader reorganisation of spending launched by Ministerie van Infrastructuur en Waterstaat minister Vincent Karremans and state secretary Annet Bertram. With Prinsjesdag on 15 September, the annual presentation of the state budget, the Government allocated a further EUR5.1 billion to the Mobiliteitsfonds (Mobility Fund), the public mobility fund, through to 2040. Of this, EUR1.5 billion has already been allocated this year to major maintenance of roads, bridges and railways, with an additional EUR300 million a year for regional mobility. The ministry is changing the priorities of all national infrastructure projects, shifting resources from new construction to the renewal of existing assets, and Rijkswaterstaat said the outcome will be announced in the coming weeks, with the final allocation expected by 1 June 2027 in the Voorjaarsnota (Spring Memorandum), the spring budget statement.
P.R.
