Jokinen Plan

Last updated
Vanmiddag heeft prof. dr. David A. Jokinen zijn boek Geef de stad een kans nad, Bestanddeelnr 093-0712.jpg
David Jokinen with a copy of his plan for Amsterdam. The title reads Give the city a chance

The Jokinen Plan comprises two reports, drawn up by the American traffic expert David A. Jokinen, on the urban planning of two Dutch cities: for The Hague in 1962, and for Amsterdam in 1967, both set out in a brochure. [1]

Contents

The Hague

The first Plan Jokinen, from 1962, related to the station area of The Hague. The Bezuidenhout district in the city, adjacent to The Hague Staatsspoor station, had been largely destroyed in World War II by Allied bombing. Reconstruction had still not started because there was no agreement about what to do. Jokinen saw an opportunity to put an end to the historical situation in which two main stations each served only part of the rail traffic. His plan included the removal of the Staatsspoor station, with Hollands Spoor becoming the central station. In the Bezuidenhout, space was created for a motorway to Scheveningen and a monorail for public transport.

The plan sparked fierce discussions in The Hague. It was not implemented, in part because it was only presented when decision-making had finally reached an advanced stage. Den Haag Centraal railway station now stands on the site of the Staatsspoor station, while the Amsterdam-Rotterdam main line is served by Den Haag HS railway station (Hollands Spoor), 1,600 m away. Part of the motorway that Jokinen proposed was realised in the form of the Utrechtsebaan.

Amsterdam

Explanation of the Jokinen Plan, and why it never materialised.

The second study, from 1967, partly funded by the car lobby group, Stichting Weg (Road Foundation), aimed to revitalise the city of Amsterdam by facilitating accessibility by car. Jokinen made some radical choices to that end. The plan mainly focused on providing easy car access to the city centre. For example, the Singelgracht was to be filled in and replaced by a six-lane highway (comparable to the route of the current s100 inner ring road, but much wider). The impoverished working-class neighbourhoods De Pijp and Kinkerbuurt were to be completely demolished. A major highway (the so-called Zuidelijke Ontsluitingsweg, Southern Access Road) would pass through De Pijp to the inner city ring, surrounded by a central business district inspired by La Défense in Paris, with many high office towers. [2]

Jokinen assumed that, just like in the USA, most people would choose to live in the suburbs and drive to work, although public transport was also taken into account. A new central station would be built in the vicinity of the Weteringcircuit. Dutch Railways adopted the idea and, until the mid-1970s, argued for a major terminal station in De Pijp, dubbed Amsterdam Centrum-Zuid station, which would also connect to two branches of the North-South metro line. Jokinen advocated a system of monorails to connect parking garages on the edge of the city centre with the old city.

Jokinen's ideas arose from other concepts from the same period. His vision to build high towers in park-like environments was very similar to Le Corbusier's ideas for Paris ( Plan Voisin ). Jokinen's preference for the car resembled the way Robert Moses attempted to transform New York at the same time. In the view of Jokinen, the city centre would be affected somewhat, but not as badly as envisaged by Plan Kaasjager in 1954, which proposed filling in many city centre canals to create roads. [3] Nevertheless, the plan met with fierce criticism and was mostly not adopted by the implementing agencies. Apart from a number of rather large viaducts on the Centrumring, and the fairly large-scale reprofiling of the Wibautstraat after the metro was built, the plan ultimately had hardly any consequences for the city.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transport in the Netherlands</span> Overview of the transport in the Netherlands

The Netherlands is both a very densely populated and a highly developed country in which transport is a key factor of the economy. Correspondingly it has a very dense and modern infrastructure, facilitating transport with road, rail, air and water networks. In its Global Competitiveness Report for 2014-2015, the World Economic Forum ranked the Dutch transport infrastructure fourth in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transport in Suriname</span>

The Republic of Suriname has a number of forms of transport. Transportation emissions are an increasing part of Suriname's contributions to climate change, as part of the Nationally Determined Contributions for the Paris Agreement, Suriname has committed to emissions controls for vehicles and increased public transit investment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Hague</span> City and municipality in South Holland, the Netherlands

The Hague is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of the Netherlands is Amsterdam, The Hague has been described as the country's de facto capital. The Hague is also the capital of the province of South Holland, and the city hosts both the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amsterdam Zuid station</span> Railway station in Amsterdam, Netherlands

Amsterdam Zuid is a railway station situated in the borough of Amsterdam-Zuid in Amsterdam, Netherlands. For a number of years, it was named Amsterdam Zuid WTC, in reference to the neighbouring World Trade Center Amsterdam. During 2006, in conjunction with the rapid development of the area surrounding the station, the station was enlarged and the reference to the WTC was formally dropped from the name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Den Haag Centraal railway station</span> Railway station in The Hague

Den Haag Centraal is the largest railway station in the city of The Hague in South Holland, Netherlands, and with twelve tracks, the largest terminal station in the Netherlands. The railway station opened in 1973, adjacent to its predecessor: Den Haag Staatsspoor, which was subsequently demolished. It is the western terminus of the Gouda–Den Haag railway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haagse Bos</span> Place in South Holland, Netherlands

Haagse Bos is a rectangular neighbourhood and forest in the Haagse Hout district of The Hague, Netherlands, reaching from the old city centre in the south-west to the border of Wassenaar in the north-east. It is also one of the oldest remaining forests of the country. During World War II, the park was used by the Germans for launching V-1 and V-2 rockets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">A4 motorway (Netherlands)</span>

The A4 motorway, also called Rijksweg 4, is a motorway in the Netherlands running from Amsterdam southwards to the Belgian border near Zandvliet, north of the city of Antwerp. The A4 is divided into two sections; the first and longer section runs from Amsterdam to the A15 near the city of Rotterdam, while the second section starts near Heijningen, where the A29 and the A4 meet, going to the Belgian border.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bezuidenhout</span> Place in South Holland, Netherlands

Bezuidenhout is the neighborhood southeast of the Haagse Bos neighborhood of The Hague in the Netherlands. Bezuidenhout includes the Beatrixkwartier financial area near the Central Station and streets such as Bezuidenhoutseweg, Juliana van Stolberglaan, Laan van Nieuw Oost-Indië, Prins Clauslaan, and Theresiastraat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Den Haag HS railway station</span> Railway station in The Hague, Netherlands

Den Haag HS, an abbreviation of the original name Den Haag Hollands Spoor, is the oldest train station in The Hague, South Holland, Netherlands, located on the Amsterdam–Haarlem–Rotterdam railway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Den Haag Laan van NOI railway station</span> Railway station in The Hague, Netherlands

Den Haag Laan van NOI railway station is a railway station in the Netherlands, on the border between The Hague and the town of Voorburg. It is served by the Nederlandse Spoorwegen and by the RandstadRail light-rail network. The station is named after the road on which it is located, Laan van Nieuw Oost-Indië, which literally translates as New East Indies Avenue, but probably refers to a former inn called Nieuw Oosteinde.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amsterdam Amstel station</span> Railway station in Amsterdam

Amsterdam Amstel is a railway station in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The station opened in 1939. It is located to the southeast of Amsterdam Centraal in the borough of Amsterdam-Oost, near the Amstel river. Amsterdam Amstel is used daily by 50,000 train and metro passengers. Rail services at the station are provided by NS, the principal railway operator in the Netherlands. Metro, tram and city bus services are provided by municipal operator GVB. Regional buses are operated by Connexxion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Groningen railway station</span>

Groningen railway station, locally called Hoofdstation, is the main railway station in Groningen in the Province of Groningen, Netherlands. It is located on the Harlingen–Nieuweschans railway between Zuidhorn and Groningen Europapark, on the Meppel–Groningen railway as terminus after Groningen Europapark, and on the Groningen–Delfzijl railway as terminus after Groningen Noord.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amsterdam-Zuid</span> Borough of Amsterdam in North Holland, Netherlands

Amsterdam-Zuid is a borough (stadsdeel) of Amsterdam, Netherlands. The borough was formed in 2010 as a merger of the former boroughs Oud-Zuid and Zuideramstel. The borough has almost 138,000 inhabitants (2013). With 8,500 homes per square kilometer, it is one of the most densely populated boroughs of Amsterdam. It has the highest income per household of all boroughs in Amsterdam.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">De Pijp</span> Neighbourhood of Amsterdam in North Holland, Netherlands

De Pijp is a neighbourhood of Amsterdam, Netherlands. It is located directly south of Amsterdam's city centre and it is part of the borough Amsterdam-Zuid, in a part of the city known as the Old South. It is served by De Pijp metro station. Most streets in De Pijp are named after Dutch painters, like Jan Steen, Frans Hals, Ruysdael and Vincent van Gogh. Diamantbuurt, Nieuwe Pijp and Oude Pijp are the three districts composing the area.

NPO FunX is a Dutch public radio station which has been on air since 3 August 2002. The station runs mainly urban music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bombing of the Bezuidenhout</span> Aerial bombing operation during World War II

The bombing of the Bezuidenhout took place on 3 March 1945, when the Royal Air Force mistakenly bombed the Bezuidenhout neighbourhood in the Dutch city of The Hague. At the time, the neighbourhood was more densely populated than usual with evacuees from The Hague and Wassenaar; tens of thousands were left homeless and had to be quartered in the Eastern and Central Netherlands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Road transport in the Netherlands</span> Overview of road transport in the Netherlands

With 139,000 km of public roads, the Netherlands has one of the most dense road networks in the world – much denser than Germany and France, but still not as dense as Belgium. In 2013, 5,191 km were national roads, 7,778 km were provincial roads, and 125,230 km were municipality and other roads. Dutch roads include 3,530 km of motorways and expressways, and with a motorway density of 64 kilometres per 1,000 km2, the country also has one of the densest motorway networks in the world. In Dutch a motorway is called "autosnelweg" or simply "snelweg"; other expressways are just called "autoweg". According to a 2004 estimate, some 12,500 km of road remain as yet unpaved.

The following is a timeline of the history of the municipality of The Hague, Netherlands,

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dutch farmers' protests</span> 2019–present protest of farmers in the Netherlands

The Dutch farmers' protests are a series of demonstrations by Dutch livestock farmers, characterised by the use of tractors to block roads, and occupy public spaces. The protests were initially triggered in October 2019 by a government proposal to halve the country's livestock in an attempt to limit agricultural pollution in the Netherlands, but protesting farmers have frequently told media that they are motivated by a perceived lack of respect for their profession by the Dutch populace, media and politicians. The protests combined several action groups and an amalgamation of larger goals, which included less government regulation for farmers, more air time for pro-farmer sentiments, and more policy to punish Shell and Tata Steel for their part in the emission crisis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1989–1990 Dutch farmers' protests</span>

The 1989–1990 Dutch farmers' protests, for want of an unambiguous official name also referred to as the Farmers' Revolt, was a series of protests by Dutch farmers of arable land. Starting locally in February–March 1989 and culminating in nationwide demonstrations in February–March 1990, the protests were a response to changes in government agricultural policy beginning in the mid-1980s.

References

  1. D.A. Jokinen: Geef de stad een kans, Stichting Weg, Roosendaal, 1968
  2. "Hoe Amsterdam bijna ten onder ging - Gemeente Amsterdam". archief10.archiefweb.eu. Archived from the original on 2018-02-05.
  3. "Lof voor Kaasjager - Vereniging Vrienden van de Amsterdamse Binnenstad".