Due to maintenance, nine Brussels tunnels will temporarily be closed during the summer holidays. To limit traffic disruption, work in four of the nine tunnels will be carried out only at night, reports Brussels Mobility. And in the country’s south, some major highway projects will also be carried out, which could immediately impact the traffic to the south.

The Tervuren and Woluwe tunnels will be closed from 1 July to 27 August. Asbestos will be removed in the first weeks, after which the concrete on the ceilings will be repaired.

Asbestos

Asbestos also needs to be removed and the concrete of the ceiling repaired in the Kunst-Wet/Arts-Loi Tunnel. The tunnel will, therefore, be closed to traffic from 22 July to the end of August.

The tunnel tube toward Ter Kameren/La Cambre of the Baljuw/Bailli and Vleurgat tunnel will be closed until 20 July. From then until the end of August, the tunnel tube in the direction of the city center will close. After that, work will continue only at night, although only one lane in each direction will be available.

Concrete of the ceilings

Major maintenance work on the Troon/Trône tunnel with night closures will continue until the end of October. The Madou Tunnel will remain closed at night until the end of September, and the Reyers Center Tunnel and Rogier Tunnel until the end of December.

From September, work will also be carried out at night in the Naamsepoort/Porte de Namur Tunnel and the Kruidtuin/Botanique Tunnel. The former will close at night until March 2024, while the latter will remain closed at night until early 2024. In all tunnels, the concrete of the ceilings will be repaired and protected against corrosion.

Furthermore, the complete renovation of the bridge deck of the Beaulieu bridge over the E411 and Delta tunnels will start in July. This will be done in two phases: in July and August 2023 on the lanes toward the city center and in the summer of 2024 on the lanes toward Auderghem. The lanes where work is carried out will be closed to traffic, which will have to use the other lanes in both directions.

Since some pieces of concrete fell back in 2016, Brussels has experienced a tunnel crisis. Now there must be a safety inspection every six years.

Pitfalls on the road to holidays in the south

Some major roadworks are also planned south of Brussels, works that could impact holidaymakers heading south by car, writes the newspaper La Dernière Heure.

The road deck on the Brussels Ring Road will be widened to three lanes between Braine-l’Alleud and Hoeilaart. A 7-kilometer stretch of resurfacing work will require the ring to be closed entirely for the first two weekends in August.

On the E411, the resurfacing works between Daussoulx and Thorembais-Saint-Trond heading north will have a major impact on motorists heading south, with the highway changing from a dual three-lanes to a dual two-lane carriageway over 14 km.

In and around Liège

The resurfacing work between Baraque de Fraiture and Manhay on the E25 toward Liège will be completed on 14 July. On that same E25 in Liège, converting the E25/A25 highway between the Monsin dam-bridge and the Atlas bridge into an urban boulevard may cause mobility problems until the summer of 2024. Junction 41 ‘Tilff” on the E25 will also be closed until the end of the year.

And the complete renovation of the Liers bridge in Herstal on the E313 is causing problems on the highway itself, as traffic is restricted to one lane in each direction. This will continue until the end of the year.

In Remicourt, on the E40, work began to remove asbestos from the bridge over the highway. The work started in April but will be completed in early July. This will entail changes to the traffic flow.