European route E34

European route E34 forms part of the United NationsInternational E-road network. It connects Zeebrugge, the major seaport of Bruges, with Bad Oeynhausen, a German spa town located beside the River Weser at the eastern edge of North Rhine-Westphalia. At Bad Oeynhausen the E34 links to the E30, a major pan European east-west artery. It also passes, relatively briefly, through the Netherlands, following the southern by-pass of Eindhoven. Within Germany the route follows from south-west to north-east the full length of North Rhine-Westphalia.

By the early 1990s, the western portion of the route, between Antwerp and the coast, was a dual carriageway with frequent intersections, the more busy of which were controlled by traffic lights and marked by 90 kilometres per hour (56 mph) speed limits. Starting at the Antwerp end, this part of the E34 has more recently been progressively upgraded with junctions either eliminated or else replaced by motorway-style intersections. The road is still of sub-motorway quality between the coast and Zelzate, but to the east of the road tunnel under the Ghent–Terneuzen Canal, the upgrade is virtually complete. The upgrade from National road to Autoroute quality has been reflected in a name change, from N49 to A11: in terms of national road numbers, as long as the upgrade remains incomplete, the two names are currently used interchangeably or together (N49-A11) when referring to the full length between Antwerp and Zeebrugge. In Belgium the E route numbers are given prominence at least equal to nationally assigned road numbers, so that in practice the road may be marked, using all three names, as the N49-E34-A11. Locally the road is often referred to more simply as the expressway (de expresweg).

In 2014 a wildlife crossing named Kempengrens was realised over the E34 at the Belgian/Dutch border at Postel.^[1]

La ruta bordea Amberes utilizando la circunvalación interior sur R1, que incluye el túnel Kennedy . Este túnel está cerrado a vehículos con ciertas cargas peligrosas, los cuales deben desviarse a la circunvalación exterior norte R2. Para paliar los retrasos resultantes, y debido a la frecuente congestión de la propia circunvalación sur, se está planificando la construcción de una circunvalación interior norte para Amberes.

El tramo alemán de la E34 atraviesa la zona norte del cinturón industrial del Ruhr . La mayor parte de la carretera, que actualmente se encuentra en proceso de mejora, es ahora una autopista de seis carriles (tres en cada sentido). Los accesos están relativamente cerca unos de otros en este tramo, y la ruta, especialmente el tramo entre Duisburgo y Dortmund, suele sufrir retrasos debido a la congestión del tráfico.

• Comisión Económica para Europa de las Naciones Unidas: Mapa general de la red de carreteras electrónicas (2007)