Incredible £752m mega-project set to transform European country’s motorways

An impressive total of 41 major roadworks will be carried out on Flemish motorways in the north of Belgium by the end of 2024, for a total eye-watering price tag of over 902 million euros, or £752 million. 

The Flemish Minister for Mobility and Public Works, Lydia Peeters confirmed in March that dozens of major works would be carried out of the course of the year, with the focus on the renovation of 16 bridges or viaducts, seven tunnels and several engineering works. 

“The interventions are very diverse,” Peeters told The Brussels Times.

“They range from renewals of the road surface to the installation of noise barriers, the construction of rush-hour lanes and the conversion of traffic complexes.”

The investment total excludes the large-scale Oosterweel project, which made headlines for the PFAS pollution on the site, linked to the 3M factory nearby. 

The realisation of that project, connecting the Left Bank and Right Bank on the north side of Antwerp, is expected to cost seven billion euros (£5.8 billion). These high costs were explained by the fact that new roads, bridges and tunnels needed to be built. 

Antwerp in Flanders, Belgium, is also the location of one of the largets infrastructure projects, which was due to begin in March. One lane of the outer ring road near Sportpaleis was expected to be closed and the remaining three narrowed. 

The announcement of these works raised concerns among commuters who regularly drive on Flemish motorways. Already, congestion heaviness in January 2024 broke records and roadwork usually exacerbates the issue. 

“There will be route controls and the road police will also keep an eye on things,” Peeters established.

A new national campaign was also launched, calling on people to inform themselves about the planned works.

Antwerp sits on the river Scheldt on the largest estuary in Europe, which joins the waterway to the Meuse and the Rhine. As such, the city has become renowned for its vital role in the global shipping network, primarily thanks to the Port of Antwerp-Bruges, the second largest of its kind in Europe. 

It is known as the diamond capital of the world, and the diamond trade in the port began almost 500 years ago. 

The city is also placed south of the Netherlands, west of Germany and north of Brussels, meaning it lies at the centre of more than one valuable network. 

A mega-tunnel that has spent years in development will soon be open in the cultural centre and has been billed as the “project of a century”. Eventually, Antwerp will welcome a self-contained network of its very own, that will allow people to travel through the city underwater. 

According to construction outlet B1M, the city is on the verge of finishing a miles-long mega complex of tunnels that have been painstakingly fitted together underwater.

While the segments will be slotted together in 2025, the project isn’t expected to be finished until 2030, but when it is, it could cut the proportion of Antwerp’s car journeys from 70 to 50 percent.

The population of the Antwerp metro area in 2024 is projected to be 1.06 million, a 0.38 percent increase from 2023. The population of Antwerp itself is just over 536,000, making it the most populated municipality in Belgium.