This weekend Gé & Lindy were in Amsterdam. The lockdown is long, and we'd had about enough of our walks around Utrecht. We decided to take a different walk, in Amsterdam no less. Gé loves Amsterdam, and Lindy mainly finds it far too busy. But Lindy does love all the nice little bakeries, speciality shops and places to eat and drink. Secretly, she misses that just a little on the Straatweg.
The Amsterdamsestraatweg is the longest street in Utrecht. There are countless shops. Lots of kebab shops and hairdressers, too. But these days there are also a great many nice shops, restaurants and bars. You can see it slowly changing.
In the neighbourhoods around the Straatweg, demand for homes has grown enormously. The price per m2 there has even risen by 14.8% over the past year. For Utrecht as a whole, it's 12.3%.
The Amsterdamsestraatweg is going to be redesigned. But what exactly are they going to do?
What are they going to do?
- They're turning the Amsterdamsestraatweg into a 30 km/h street
- The layout of the road and the cycle paths stays the same
- Between the Weerdsingel and the railway viaduct, they're redesigning the road completely. This will create a safe road where cyclists and pedestrians can cross easily.
- Between the railway viaduct and the Marnixlaan, they're redesigning the street at specific spots. For example at the squares and crossing points. This will make crossing safer here too.
- Visibility onto and out of the side streets of the Amsterdamsestraatweg will be improved. They're also keeping obstacles on the cycle path and pavement to a minimum.
- The trees on the Amsterdamsestraatweg will get more room to grow.
A changing neighbourhood
For a long time, the Amsterdamsestraatweg didn't rank high on the wish list of the nicest neighbourhoods to live in. But it's getting nicer and nicer. The Amsterdamsestraatweg is hip again. Jan is de Man has even got the Straatweg into the Lonely Planet. An international street: that's what the Straatweg should become. A street full of speciality shops. And slowly we're seeing change. Hip little shops are arriving, and the former workers' houses are being renovated well.
By 2030 there will be another 10,000 people in this neighbourhood. This could give the neighbourhood an enormous boost. It used to be a street full of speciality shops. Not a street with 30 hairdressers, shawarma joints and phone shops. At the moment I often cycle over to Sligro for nice cheeses and fish; a traiteur (deli and caterer) like Peek & Van Beurden would make me very happy! Even better if they kept opening hours until 20.00, so that everyone coming home from work could go there too. Great, right? A wine bar, the Spaghetteria or another nice little bar would also seem a welcome addition to the Straatweg to me.
