New highway development in the Netherlands: A residents’ perspective

This study investigates the impacts of new highway development from a residents’ perspective. Data were collected by questionnaire in two residential areas, Son and Uden, both situated along the new A50 highway in the Netherlands. The objectives of this study are: 1) to analyse the extent to which highway development has impacted the residents’ self-reported residential satisfaction through the use of Structural Equation Modeling, and 2) to explore residential self-selection, by comparing characteristics of the original population with those who have relocated into the area during and after highway development using Multinomial Logistic Regression.

The results indicate that a small majority of the residents perceived an increase in residential satisfaction due to the highway development. Living in the sampled area in Son (compared to Uden), living on close proximity to the A50 highway, having a low preference for car accessibility, and a strong preference for environmental quality were negatively associated with the change in residential satisfaction, mostly via a negative association with the perceived change in liveability or accessibility. The findings of our second analysis show that residents who had relocated into the area after the highway development have a slightly more ‘highway-oriented’ profile than the original population, i.e. a marginally higher preference for car accessibility and lower preference for environmental quality.

The study sheds light on the importance of accounting for the perceptions of the wider residential population and reveals how the impacts of new highway development differ between and within residential areas.