The province of Limburg, in the northern part of Belgium, has always been a rather remote area within the Belgian network. Home to more than 800,000 people and some major industries, the area is vast but fragmented and therefore challenging to connect and weave together. Today the car is still the main mode of transport. A major investment in the missing link between Hasselt (BE) and Eindhoven (NL) should enable part of the province to take a huge leap forward into a new future, in which public transport is the main focus, protected ecological areas are restored, and development is smart and sensible. The project consists in the research, design and implementation of public transport, bicycle infrastructure and smart road connections with the integration of landscape and different types of use. To realize this shift, a proposal was developed to address the challenge from two perspectives. The first focuses on the long-term future and what the area could look like in the coming decades. The second reuses this long-term vision and develops short-term actions that begin to enable the changes the area will need to go through.

• Location

  Limburg, Belgium

• Client

  Flemish Government (De werkvennootschap)

• Completion

  2018 - ongoing

• In collaboration with

  Tractebel, Arcadis, Maat ontwerpers, UHasselt

• 51N4E project team

  Harold Vermeiren, Chloé Nachtergael, Matteo Novarino, Sotiria Kornaropoulou, Olga Konstantinovic, Kevin Westerveld, Pieter Vandekerkhof

• 51N4E involvement

  Spatial research, planning and design. (The development of short term actions and the support of long term process planning)

• Full publication

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