Not all roads lead to Maastricht: The problems and solutions of travelling
An old saying claims that “all roads lead to Rome”. But while the city of Maastricht prides itself on being a true European city, certainly not all roads lead to it. Travellers and commuters trying to reach a foreign city often find themselves stuck in traffic or waiting endlessly at a train station. The local Chamber of Commerce calls the quality of cross-border public transportation “just plain bad”. Luckily some solutions, such as the ultra fast Train A Grande Vitesse (TGV), might brighten up the future for all those travelling abroad.
‘Junkenlijntje’
Giuseppe Zaffuto is a frequent passenger on the train from Maastricht to Liege and further. And he does not speak favourably of what he calls “those third world trains”. The Italian native travels to Brussels at least once a week for his job as a senior project manager for the European journalism Centre. He also uses the train to get to Brussels airport to visit his relatives in Italy.
The Belgian trains connecting Maastricht and Liege date back to the late 1960s and early 1970s. The interior appears to be a tribute to grandmother’s living room, but it needs to be said: in comparison to the Dutch trains there is absolutely no sign of vandalism. This is surprising considering the route is locally known as the ‘junkenlijntje’ because of the drug addicts that travel to Maastricht.
The train stops four times before reaching Liege, the trip lasting little over half an hour. “Nowadays, there is a lot of time pressure”, says Mr. Zaffuto. “It takes two hours to get to Brussels. What Maastricht needs is a faster connection to Liege and a fast, direct train to Aachen.” Despite the frequent stops between both cities, the connection is popular.
“About 80 to 100 passengers on each trip, and full carriages during rush hours”, says train inspector Peter van Mierlo. “There are many Dutch students commuting to Leuven and foreign students going to universities in Maastricht. During the summer many tourists use the train”.
The train inspector and his Belgian colleague estimate that about 25 per cent of all the passengers on the train use the station in Liege to transfer to another destination, such as Brussels. This can be a stressful situation. “The transfer time in Liege to the Thalys train to Brussels is about ten minutes. That might be a little short”, admits Mr Van Mierlo. Especially when the train from Maastricht is delayed.
Light rail
It is not just travellers like Mr Zaffuto that complain about the connections. The Chamber of Commerce called the current quality of cross-border public transportation “just plain bad” in a recent publication.
It opts for a Euregio Circle Line, connecting Maastricht to Sittard-Geleen, Hasselt and Liege and also includes a connection between Liege and Aachen.
It is important that all connections use the same sort of public transportation and the same method of payment, for example a euregio-ticket, according to the Chamber of Commerce. It mentions a light rail train as a solution. The Province of Limburg is currently investigating this possibility. Two problems still stand in its way: the government is only willing to invest between EUR 25 million and EUR 30,8 million, while the project is estimated to cost EUR 43 million.
The other problem concerns the different laws regulating railroads in the relevant countries - The Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. Therefore, certain light rail trains are not allowed everywhere. However, the province has asked the various manufacturers of these trains to investigate how swiftly quality material can be made available.
TGV
Recently, Maastricht got the necessary finances (EUR 1.8m) to upgrade the station to accommodate the TGV. The European Union will pay half of the project costs while the Province of Limburg and the city of Maastricht will both pay EUR 400,000. A shortened TGV holds the world record for the fastest conventional train at 513,3 kilometres per hour. Even though the Maastricht-Liege train will not reach such high speeds, it is still expected to halve the travel time.
In 2007, the railway should be upgraded for high speed trains, cutting the travel time to Paris to two and a half hours, meanwhile Brussels will be accessible in under an hour, according to the municipality of Maastricht. By 2006, the route to Paris will be 2h56 minutes.
Mr Van Mierlo expects the fast TGV from Maastricht to become a big success. “I expect many businessmen to use that train”, he says. it will help passengers to travel much faster between Europe’s major cities. “However, TGV tickets will be more expensive than regular train tickets”, he adds, and the passengers often have to make reservations in advance.
There are two possibilities to let travellers leave from Maastricht. Option one is to start the first and last TGV of the day from Maastricht. At other times a non-stop shuttle train will take passengers to Liege, where they can transfer to the TGV This shuttle will be of high quality, fast and comfortable.
The second option is a TGV connection between Maastricht, Liege and Brussels, which connects all the incoming and outgoing TGVS. In both cases the journey takes the same amount of time. Research into the TGV issue is currently under-way and the final decision on if, and how, the TGV will operate from Maastricht will be taken in March 2005.
Stuck in traffic
Until the TGV rushes through Maastricht, commuting by car is the most comfortable option. However, the city must cope with a special situation. The A2 motorway, connecting Liege in the south and Amsterdam in the north, enters the city near the Geusselt football stadium. Drivers must cut through a part of the city and wait at various traffic lights before they can continue south on the regular motorway near the Europaplein and MECC convention centre.
This causes trouble, especially during rush hours and the summer season, when many tourists travel through the city towards the so-called ‘Route du soleil’, in the direction of warm southern Europe. The municipalities of Maastricht and neighbouring Meerssen, the Province of Limburg, and the Dutch Rijkswaterstaat have raised EUR 360 million to solve the problem. Possible solutions involve different variations on a tunnel or a ring-road around the city.
“The motorway slows down traffic and cuts two neighbourhoods apart like a sort of Berlin Wall”, says Ms Florie, communications officer for the project bureau A2. “Some traffic travels south, but 80 per cent has to go into the city. A ring road around Maastricht won’t solve that problem”, she says. A tunnel is another solution. “It will be about 2 kilometres long.”
Research into the various options started this year, but a decision will not be taken before the end of 2007, according to Ms Florie. Until then, just wait in line during rush hours.
Airport
Just a few kilometres outside the city, beside the A2 motorway, is the Maastricht-Aachen airport. Don’t expect busy terminals here, it is mainly cargo that flies in and out of the local airport. Passengers only use it during the holiday season to travel towards sunnier destinations. Or they board one of the four daily planes to Schiphol, the biggest airport in The Netherlands, near Amsterdam.
But why aren’t there more flights to European cities in an area with five million people and 250,000 companies within one hour drive of the airport?
“Budget airline Ryanair stopped its operations here on 15 January 2004″, says Roland Becx, spokesman for Maastricht-Aachen airport. “They decided to focus on Eindhoven Airport because they were not happy with the low fares in Maastricht. We opted to raise the fares, but Ryanair wouldn’t do that and left”, he explains.
Circumstances may change in 2005. Mr Becx says that the airport is negotiating with an airline to include various European cities in the flight schedule again next year. Which airline they are negotiating with, or whether it is a budget airline, he wouldn’t say. Neither, with the exception of London, did he reveal which European cities will get a connection with Maastricht-Aachen airport. “We never flew to Paris and that will never happen”, he adds. “Paris is too close. The competition with the train is too big, the train stops in the city centre of Paris.”
Better future
While current commuters and travellers might wait for the train in a cold winter breeze, get bored behind the steering wheel of a car stuck in traffic, or pass their time on the museum-like train slowly making its way to Liege, various big plans make the future look much brighter. Within a few years we might travel through Maastricht on a TGV, a light rail train or we might even speed through a tunnel so quickly we will not even get a glimpse of the city anymore.
By Bas Jussen
Source: Crossroads print issue, December 2004
