Oudenrijn, the old roundabout in the early sixties. Already changes had been made to the 1938-design: gasoline stations had been added as well as a third lane on the roundabout.

Oudenrijn became the most well known traffic-jam location in the early sixties. In the 1930-ies it had already been considered to build a cloverleaf, but this would cost too much money. In 1966 construction for a cloverleaf had started while traffic was still on the old roundabout.

Connecting the outer ramps a bigger roundabout had been build in 1967, in order to get enough space to build the new interchange. This situation was calles the “stuiver”, because it had the form of an old dutch nickel-coin.

This picture of 1969 shows the interchange, which had been completed on november 13, 1968. The reconstruction meant an enormous relief for all traffic passing Utrecht. However, it proved not to be the ideal interchange-design because of a great amount of traffic which had to turn to another direction at Oudenrijn.

Twining-section east of Oudenrijn, 1977.

The same twining-section looking from the opposite direction, 1977. In the background the Galecopperbridge.

Reconstructions works on Oudenrijn interchange went on and in 1996

some direct ramps were built to eliminate all lane-shifting problems.

This interchange-design is called a clover-turbine.