Roadworks in October: closures by travel date

Anyone planning a day trip or a visit outside their own city in October may encounter extra travel time on various motorways. This autumn Rijkswaterstaat is working on roads, bridges and tunnels in several places and warns that delays on large projects can rise to an hour. The schedule is not a permanent state: work is already under way on the A2, while the long closures on the A15 and A59 begin only later in the month. A route that runs well on Tuesday may therefore not be the same route the following weekend.

On the A2 between the Everdingen interchange and the Deil interchange, according to Rijkswaterstaat the major maintenance runs until Friday morning 16 October 2026. Between Culemborg and Geldermalsen, three of the four lanes are available in both directions. There are also night closures and temporary closures of entry and exit slip roads. In the rush hour the extra travel time can rise to sixty minutes. The work includes replacing seven kilometres of asphalt and maintenance of crash barriers, signage and lighting, among other things. Anyone driving along this corridor to an appointment therefore gains more from checking their own departure time than from a general report on the A2.

In Friesland there is a smaller but locally far-reaching project. The Hollandiatunnel under the A7 near Joure will be repaired from 12 to 23 October after a retaining wall was damaged earlier. From Tuesday 13 to Friday 16 October the tunnel is closed daily from 06.00 to 18.00 to all traffic, including cyclists and scheduled buses. Rijkswaterstaat indicates a diversion via Scharsterbrug, Sint Nicolaasga and the A6. Outside those hours, one lane is available under traffic light control. The report concerns the tunnel passage, not a complete closure of the A7.

The next big turning point is Friday evening 16 October. Then, on the A15 between the Ridderkerk and Benelux interchanges, a multi-day closure of parts of the parallel carriageway towards Europoort and Maasvlakte begins. The schedule runs from 16 October 21.00 until Monday 26 October 05.00, but the closed section and the diversion change during that period. Rijkswaterstaat mentions up to sixty minutes of extra travel time on weekdays and up to thirty minutes at the weekend. For one destination the main carriageway may remain an option, while another exit is temporarily unusable. The project page therefore gives the exact situation per phase.

In the same period another route in the south is closed. The A59 is closed in both directions on sections around the Hooipolder interchange from Friday 16 October 21.00 until Monday 26 October 05.00. Rijkswaterstaat is replacing traffic lights and adjusting lanes and queuing lanes. Towards Zeeland and Rotterdam the closure applies between Waalwijk and Oosterhout; towards ’s-Hertogenbosch between Hooipolder and Waalwijk. Several connections at the interchange also close, with an explicit exception for the curve of the A59 from Rotterdam and Zeeland to the A27 towards Utrecht. For through traffic a diversion via the A16, A58, N65 and A65 is indicated.

Anyone choosing a route through Noord-Brabant or Zuid-Holland should not look at the two multi-day projects as separate dots on a map. The A59 diversion may become busy and the A15 has different exits and connecting roads per phase. Rijkswaterstaat estimates thirty to sixty minutes of extra travel time for the A59 and advises travelling outside the rush hour where possible. For the A15 too, the road manager advises travellers to look at their route beforehand. That is especially useful for a visit with a fixed start time: the day of departure determines which closure actually applies.

The road manager itself calls its public calendar a schedule subject to change. It lists the major autumn projects and refers to current traffic information per route or road number. That prevents an old map from last weekend dictating the journey. Archive photos of previous road works.