Today in the news: part of the Dutch N274 between Koningsbosch and
Schinveld has been handed back to Germany. This road was built on Dutch
territory when it was built in the late fifties. When the territory was
handed back to Germany in 1963, from which country it was annexed after
the Second World War, it was with the exclusion of said road.
The Dutch Directorate-General of Public Works and Water Management
(Rijkswaterstaat) remained responsible for maintaining the road. German
police couldn't fine speeders, since they had no way of legally getting
to a place from where they could monitor speeding drivers, as the road
has no exits to German territory.
However, this is going to change now that the road has been officially
handed over to the German authorities. It will be connected with Germany
before the end of the year. The first connection, in the form of a
roundabout, will come between the German villages of Höngen and
Saeffelen. More connections will follow in the years to come.
To get an idea of where this road exactly is, visit
<
http://www.locatienet.nl>, enter "Selfkant" under "Woonplaats", choose
"Duitsland" from the list of countries, and zoom out one level on the
resulting map (from "buurt" to "wijk"). The N274 is the grey road from
Koningsbosch to Schinveld.
As a newspaper report says, special regulations will continue to apply:
on Sundays, lorries can continue to use this road, which is otherwise
prohibited.
Another newspaper report says that the transfer involved changing the
border treaty between the Netherlands and Germany. As such, it required
the consent of both houses of Dutch Parliament as well as of the German
Bundestag. So far, I have not been able to find documents regarding this
on the website of the Dutch Lower House (see <
http://www.parlement.nl>),
nor of the German Bundestag (see <
http://www.bundestag.de>). My guess
is that the legislation has not passed through the respective
parliaments yet. (This would, however, make the transfer rather
premature.)
The only Dutch government document I have been able to find is
<
http://overheid-op.sdu.nl/cgi-
bin/showdoc/pos=0/session=anonymous@3A6373337027/query=2/action=pdf/KVR30
67.pdf>, which is a reply from the responsible Dutch minister to a
question asked by a parliamentarian in 1996, in which the minister says
she has opened talks with her German counterpart to discuss the transfer
of the road into German hands. (Here, the road is referred to as
_Rijksweg 774_. Does anybody know if this is an error or just another
designation of the N274?)
I have found a German goverment document, a press release from late
December last year, on the website of the federal Ministry of Transport,
Building and Housing: <
http://www.bmvbw.de/Pressemitteilungen-
.361.7521/Anbindung-der-Transitstrasse-im-Selfkant-an-das-deutsche-
Strassennetz.htm>
An interesting question would be whether or not the road will keep its
designation, N274. German roads of the same type are signified by the
letter B.
Links to the newspaper reports:
<
http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/binnenland/1014618216943.html>
<
http://www.limburgsdagblad.nl/Index/0,4341,,00.html?sHoofdUrl=http%3A%2F
%2Fwww.limburgsdagblad.nl%2FArchiefArtikel%2F0%2C4354%2C30-1-2039--
313234%2C00.html>
<
http://www.limburgsdagblad.nl/Index/0,4341,,00.html?sHoofdUrl=http%3A%2F
%2Fwww.li
mburgsdagblad.nl%2FArchiefArtikel%2F0%2C4354%2C30-1-2039--
389041%2C00.html>
-Pepijn
P.S. I know that Bernd Kueck has a Dutch report from the magazine _De
Kampioen_. Maybe he could scan this article and post it to the group?
--
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http://www.bigfoot.com/~pepijnh -- ICQ - 6033220