November 27, 1968
ROTTERDAM, HOLLAND — As more and more Europeans discover the automobile, their cities are rediscovering the value of rapid transit. From Helsinki to Rome and Munich to London, the drawing boards are sprouting designs for new or expanded subway systems and hundreds of miles of track is being laid.
Rotterdam, too, has gotten into the act — in a small way. The now Metro here is neither big nor elaborate. It’s less than four miles long and has only seven stations. Rotterdam’s Metro is remarkable only because it was built.
A Metro train zips along the Rotterdam harbor
In developing the first rapid transit system in the Netherlands with no financial help and in the face of great technical problems, this city has demonstrated that better public transportation is available to any city that wants it badly enough. It’s a matter of decision.
“Enemy number one…”
Before taking up the question of a Metro, Rotterdam first had to endorse the general concept of expanded public transportation. It did so despite the increasing importance of private autos here. C.G. van Leeuwen, general manager of Rotterdamse Elektrische Tram, the municipal transportation company, explains the first decision: “In our country, there is one private car to nine inhabitants, which is not an excessive high figure (the ratio is one to two in the U.S.), but the number of inhabitants per square kilometer is very high in this country…about five times as high as in the United States of America.
“For this reason,” van Leeuwen says, “the traffic congestions are also in our country the enemy number one for town-builders, town-planners and municipal authorities. Here the public transport can give an important contribution to combat this enemy.”
Supporting this position, the Dutch government asserts, “In order to ensure that the city centers continue to function, the government considers that — naturally in addition to the necessary traffic facilities — the extensions of public transport are the only possibility to achieve adequate solutions, especially on behalf of the home-work traffic. This changeover to public transport should be promoted as quickly as possible.”
A Free Track
Rotterdam’s City Council confronted the question of a Metro in 1959. Two factors forced the decision, van Leeuwen relates: “The increased and further increasing traffic congestion in the city makes it impossible to maintain a service of reasonable regularity and reasonable speed if the public transport cannot be freed from traffic congestion.
“Promotion of public transport is only possible under conditions that this form of transport can give an attractive alternative to the use of the private car, and such an attractive alternative is only possible if the public transport is not hindered by traffic congestion. This leads us to the vital condition of good public transport: a free track, independent of private transport.”
The second reason, he says, was a geographical one. “The town of Rotterdam is divided into two parts by the (Meuse) river and with the town center being on the northern bank and big residential areas on the southern bank, there is an intensive traffic flow each day across the river — the bottleneck of our whole traffic and transport problem. Therefore, the creating of a separate tunnel only for river-crossing public transport had an urgency number one.”
In January 1959, the City Council was handed a report, which recommended construction of a rapid transit system — part in tunnel and part elevated — rather than a new river tunnel for trams. The advantages were cited: 1) The Metro has a completely free track and never conflicts with private traffic. 2) It has a higher capacity than other forms of public transit. 3) It needs less operating personnel. 4) It can provide more regular service. 5) It is easily automated.
The City Fathers paused to consider two major obstacles — the extreme difficulty of subway construction in a city lying partly below sea level and the $70,000,000 burden the Metro would place on the city. It was worth a try, they decided. In May 1959, Rotterdam’s City Council voted to go underground.
To finance the project, Rotterdam made a long-term loan from Holland’s national municipal bank, established by the national government to loan money to Dutch cities. The bank, in turn, borrows money on the free market at a lower rate of interest than the cities might receive.
The technical problems went to the city’s engineers who, like all Dutch engineers, seem to be able to build anything.
And this was the easy part! Sections of the river tunnel were built in the Van Brienenoord dry dock constructed as an inlet of the Meuse River. When finished, they were floated to the tunnel site. It took an average of five months to build two sections. (See Pages 8 and 9.)
The engineers had three jobs to do — build a tunnel under the busy river, a mile and a half of Metro track through the middle of downtown Rotterdam, and more than a mile and half of rail south of the river. Work started in 1960.
Under the Meuse
Since the river moves with the tides and carries a large volume of shipping, the tunnel construction had to be done without blocking up the river. So they built the river tunnel on land.
The city’s Tunnel Department took over the tip of the small Van Brienenoord Island, hollowed it out, and put a giant gate on it to create a dry dock. A concrete factory was built in the dry dock and workmen began casting the pre-stressed concrete tubes, which would carry the Metro under the river. Meanwhile, at the site selected for the Metro crossing two-and-a-half miles down the river, a trench was dredged across the river bottom. Into the trench went 880 piles to support the tunnel.
The dry dock produced two of the giant concrete tubes about every five months. As they were finished, the tubes, measuring from 240 to 290 feet long, were capped at each end. Then the dock was flooded and the great stone chunks floated to the surface, barely. Just four inches of their 19 feet were above the water.
After launching the tunnel sections, the engineers opened the gate and floated each tube into the river. Guided by two barges and four tugboats, the tube was steered down the river to the tunnel site.
Gina
At the end of its river cruise, each tube was carefully sunk into position. Because of the tides, the engineers had only seven-and-a-half hours for the submerging procedure and only an hour and a half for the most delicate work when the current slowed.
To connect the tubes, the engineers invented Gina. Gina is a rubber-sealing ring, which has a shape, they say, like a certain Italian movie star. It works something like the rubber ring that Grandmother used on jars when putting up preserves. Gina went on to win the hearts of tunnel builders everywhere.
With a watertight connection between the tunnel sections, divers pumped concrete into the pile heads beneath to give the tunnel full support. Twelve sections went into the river tunnel. Since part of Rotterdam is below sea level, emergency gates were installed in the tunnel to protect the city from flooding if the tunnel should ever be damaged.
The engineers describe the river tunnel as demanding but not too difficult a job. Their greatest challenge was building the downtown link.
If you dig a hole in downtown Rotterdam, you find water just three feet below the ground. The soggy peat and clay under the city center goes down 60 feet before it changes into sand capable of supporting any weight. Everything built here, even single-car garages, must be supported by piles driven into the sand layer. Constructing the Metro line underground called for a unique solution. Rotterdam’s engineers decided to build another river tunnel — under the land.
Floating Down Main Street
The first step in building a river tunnel through downtown Rotterdam was to build a river, or at least a good Dutch canal. The route selected for the Metro — following the lines of major streets — was lined on both sides with steel sheeting. This allowed workmen to dig a trench in the dry to a depth of 12 feet between the sheeting. Then the channel was flooded and digging proceeded beneath the water down to 33 feet. Next came the pile drivers to pound 2100 piles into the canal bottom.
The water in the canal put pressure on the steel walls and helped to hold back the ground water beyond. Pumping the soil dry was avoided because it might have caused serious damage to old buildings sitting on wooden piles.
Two construction docks were dug in the downtown in which to produce tunnel sections, much the same as the method used for the river tunnel. These tunnel tubes averaged 180 feet long. As each was finished, its ends were capped, the docks flooded and the tube floated into the canal. As in the river, the sections were floated through the canal to their new homes and submerged onto the piles at the bottom of the canal. Even three underground stations were built and put into place this way.
The Coolsingel, Rotterdam’s main street, had once been the site of a canal. During the Metro construction, it became a canal again. Finally, with the new Metro tunnel in place, the sheeting was removed, the canal filled with sand, and the streets rebuilt over it.
The hardest part was finished. All that remained was the work on the south bank. Here, the city decided to use a viaduct to carry the Metro. The viaduct is cheaper (by about $8 million, in this case) and much more quickly erected than a tunnel. Metro trains run through the downtown as much as 29 feet below water level. On the viaduct, they climb to a height of 40 feet above the water.
The viaduct was built with columns spaced 150 feet apart. Into each span went five 65-ton prestressed concrete girders. The section next to the Rijnhaven and Waalhaven harbors gives Metro riders an impressive view of the world’s largest port. But it takes away that sane view from residents of the area. Southside Rotterdamers are unhappy with the viaduct. They wanted a tunnel, too.
Critics of the elevated Metro section say the short-range savings do not offset the long-range blight the viaduct will produce.
Metro tunnel sections sit in the Weena construction dock, waiting to be floated to their locations. They were built in the dry, then the dock flooded. The two large sections became the Metro station at City Hall.
The Aftermath
Today’s Metro passengers don’t see the engineering techniques that made it all possible. They do see the pleasant results — the blue-grey trains with their bright yellow stripes, humming through seven stations in just 12 minutes over a course, which took busses and trams 30 to 45 minutes to cover.
The Metro stations have bright, clean, functional lines. Escalators serve the foot weary. Following the policy for all construction here, one per cent of the Metro cost was devoted to art. The money purchased several good murals, including a sculptured-steel wall panel, which moves to the rhythm of lights flashing on it.
The Dutch penchant for glass is seen in numerous window displays and glass display cases and the glass walls of the three surface stations. A textured, shatterproof glass painted in bright colors was even used for wall panels in the underground stations.
While the surface stations are spacious, some of the underground stops seemed cramped. R.E.T. officials say that size of the passenger platforms in busy stations has proven inadequate. Stations built in the future will probably be bigger.
The Tokens Don’t Jingle
The entire system of fare collection has been automated for the Metro here. Instead of metal tokens, passengers buy stiff paper tickets from vending machines in the stations. At the tip of each ticket is a magnetized mark. When the ticket is inserted into a slot in the turnstile, the machine cuts off the tip, prints the date, time and station name on the stub, and unlocks the turnstile. The whole procedure takes about a second.
While R.E.T. is happy with the system, it still has a few bugs to work out. Vending machines occasionally act up. The tickets won’t work if they are inserted backward or face down. Large purses and shopping bags must be lifted over the turnstiles. And the turnstiles tend to glance off your knee as they rotate downward.
The paper tickets have several advantages, says an R.E.T. spokesman. Riders retain the used ticket for later checking (by a “flying squad” which makes spot checks to discourage cheaters). Since the tickets can’t be reused, there is less of a security problem and no need to lug metal tokens about. Automatic money-changing machines are available in the stations. Tickets are sold also by some 300 shops about the city.
A ride on the Metro costs 14 cents. A five-ride ticket is 35 cents. R.E.T. offers a weekly ticket, good for an unlimited number of rides on the Metro, busses or trams, for $1.24.
On Track
The four-car Metro trains begin running at 5130 in the morning and stay in operation until half an hour past midnight. During the rush hours, you can catch one every three minutes. In other hours, they run every five minutes. They can handle 24,000 passengers an hour during the peak now, and with a two-minute frequency this can be raised to 35,000
The trains are manned only by a driver. The platforms are supervised by one man in each station using closed-circuit television. When everyone is aboard, he gives the driver a go-ahead. Thus, no conductors are needed. The trains have been built so that they can operate sans driver, too. Today, the automatic train control only takes over if the driver disregards his signals.
Though the trains have steel wheels and run on steel rails, they are surprisingly quiet. The rumble has been reduced by using jointless rails, cork pads beneath the rails, and noise-absorbing building materials.
R.E.T. recently ordered 16 additional cars to supplement the 27 already in service.
How It Was Done
First You Build A Concrete Tube… The Metro tunnel began on the tip of Van Brienenoord island in the Meuse river (left) where a dry dock was constructed and fitted with a concrete factory. Tubes up to 290 feet long weighing 5000 tons were cast here. Then they were capped to make them airtight.
…Then Make A Boat… When the gate in the dock was opened, after the dock had been flooded to make the tubes float, the stone boats could be towed (below left) directly into the river. Two barges joined the four tugboats to guide the tube two-and-a-half miles down the river to the tunnel site.
…And Then A Tunnel
Sinking the tube onto the piles at the river bottom (below) was accomplished by carefully filling ballast tanks inside the tube with water. This work began at high tide and had to be finished seven-and-a-half hours later at the turn of low tide. Connecting the sections had to be done in the hour and a half when currents were light.
The tunnel under downtown Rotterdam was built in a similar fashion, but there the engineers had to build a river first. The Metro tunnel required 36 concrete tubes. Two lanes of track run through each tube.
Since the Metro was opened last February, it has carried about 26,000,000 riders. Despite the fact that service was stopped on three tramlines and nine bus lines, which crossed the river before Metro, the number of riders crossing the river on public transportation has increased 20 per cent. The remaining busses and trams operate now on more regular schedules thanks to the Metro, R.E.T. adds.
The Metro station at Maashaven in south Rotterdam spans the tramlines and affords easy transfer for passengers. The Zuidplein station, currently the southern terminus of the Metro, is the major connecting point for busses serving the area and the southern suburbs. Busses may drive into the second level of the Zuidplein station and discharge their riders at the Metro entrance. On the ground level, busses mass to receive passengers leaving the station.
“A short Metro line as we have also has a disadvantage,” says R.E.T. manager van Leeuwen. “It implies more changing from surface transport to Metro. We deliberately accepted this disadvantage of changing, but to make the disadvantage as small as possible, we have given much attention to an efficient layout of the interchange stations.”
Side Effects
In its short history, Rotterdam’s little Metro has had a big impact. The new link between the riverbanks has given the south side of the city both economic and social stimulation. A long-talked-about commercial center for south Rotterdam is close to becoming reality. To be built adjacent to the Zuidplein station, it will include a shopping center, a sports complex, exhibition halls and offices.
“The success of the new line has also had another effect,” explains van Leeuwen. “The municipal authorities and the Town Council, which have to furnish money for further extensions, are so impressed by the quality of this new form of transport that they show to be more ready than before to approve projects for the extension of this line and for the construction of a second line.
“The first extension of about one-and-a-half kilometers (about a mile) with one new station is now under construction and will be put into service in 1971. A further extension of about 10 kilometers (six miles), partly on viaduct and partly on ground level, is planned to be ready in 1974. Meanwhile, plans are made ready for a new line of about 12 kilometers (seven miles) from the city to the new residential areas in the eastern part of the town, which could be completed in 1976.”
Plans for extending the Metro still further propose that Rotterdam invest up to $500,000,000 more in rapid transit by 1990.
The Dutch government has now suggested it will pay up to half of the cost of now construction.
The reaction of Rotterdam citizens to the Metro was summed up by one businessman who said, “You know, I don’t understand how we got along without it.”
A Metro Train Headed South On A Controversial Viaduct
The Metro Entrance at Central Station. Passengers insert paper tickets into slots to right of turnstile, a machine reads them and opens turnstile.
A picture window Metro station
Prince Claus, husband of Crown Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands, buys a Metro ticket from vending machine.
Amsterdam is currently planning a rapid transit system with three radial lines, designed so that 80 per cent of all destinations will be within walking distance of the stations. Since Amsterdam and Rotterdam are such strong rivals, it is interesting to compare their approaches.
While Rotterdam could not finance a major metro system, it decided to make a quick but modest start on one. The city acted decisively and won honors for being first. Officials here like to make sarcastic remarks about Amsterdam’s timidity and slow decision-making process.
Amsterdam’s Metro plans are more methodical, better coordinated with other development in the city, and perhaps more socially conscious. The city wants to build something close to perfect. In Amsterdam, they frown on the hasty way things are done in Rotterdam.
Which city is right? It will take 20 years to answer that. Some experts say that Amsterdam will produce a better rapid transit system in the end but may find it difficult to lure people who have adopted cars in the meantime.
A recent government report tended to side with Rotterdam’s approach. It said, “The function of public transport in the town centers, especially on behalf of the home-work relationship, is so essential, however, that the action to promote the essential changeover (to public transit) may not be postponed until all the quality requirements can be met.”
‘It is impossible…’
Even the world’s best rapid transit system, the Dutch admit, won’t stop the rising tide of automobile ownership. The proliferation of cars, they say, is an argument for — not against — rapid transit.
Citing the American battle with traffic, the Second Report on Physical Planning in the Netherlands says, “Recent investigations in Europe have also demonstrated that it is in effect impossible — even in the case of overall reconstruction — to render the centers of the large cities suitable for unlimited use of motorcars under conditions of general motorization.”
Then the report asserts, “It is precisely in the large centers, where the traffic jams occur most frequently and last longest, that public transport can help to ease the problem.
“On account of its greater capacity, while using less space, it can satisfy a larger part of the overall need for transport than is the case with transport by private cars. Hence, in places where traffic jams occur more or less regularly, the functioning of public transport should especially be guaranteed.”
It emphasizes, “It is precisely in a fully motorized society that the function of public transport will have to receive special attention.”
The Zuidplein Metro station combines rapid transit and bus service.
Busses discharge passengers on second level, load them on ground level.
Deciding to build the Metro was the hardest part of the job here. Rotterdam’s example seems certain to inspire other cities to take the plunge into rapid transit. Officials from other European and American cities have already begun trooping here to see what’s been done.
Much of the renewed interest in rapid transit may have been inspired by studies like the one made in Montreal before it went Metro. There, a computer stuffed with traffic data showed that in 1980, the sole use of private cars in peak hours would require every freeway within six miles of the center to have from 14 to 22 lanes.
Park and Ride, Dutch Style
(Photos courtesy of City of Rotterdam Tunnel Construction Department of Public Works and Rotterdamse Elektrische Tram, municipal transit company.)
Received in New York December 2. 1968.
Mr. Meeker is an Alicia Patterson fund award winner, on leave from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. This article may be published with credit to David A. Meeker, the Post-Dispatch, and the Alicia Patterson Fund.
