A new E16 is coming. The battle is for a new railway to Voss.

Vestandet’s best trump card is probably Knut Arild Hareide himself.

Western Norway needs K5, ie a new road and track between Arna and Voss. That was the message one after another from a total of 21 different tenants at a public meeting in Voss on Thursday.

However, the strongest impression was that of a completely silent stone.

Torgils Rogne is a daily driver on the stretch. For the encounter, he brought with him the 24-kilo gray stone that was small on the roof of the cab of his truck a few years ago. It was only luck that prevented him from hitting his sambuar.

All Westerners know this: it is too dangerous to drive between Bergen and Voss today.

Transport and Communications Minister Knut Arild Hareide (KrF) was in his home county on Thursday to discuss the next edition of the National Transport Plan. For example, it doesn’t say anything about which project it comes with and which one doesn’t.

Now travel and tell him that the previous edition was too ambitious. Costs have skyrocketed and there is simply no money to build everything.

At a press breakfast in Bergen, he gave the introduction “A National Transportation Plan We Can Believe In”. It’s probably not just a little religious about the title Hareide wants as a KrF trailer.

Has to start cleanup job after overzealous FRP predecessors in ministry, and that’s a good thing.

Between advice and Sarpsborg, it turns out that the planned upgrade of the Østfold line will be largely based on fast clay. Thus, the project does not cost 40,000 million, compared to 12,000 million in 2012.

As Hareide said at breakfast: “Østfold was not so long ago under water.” The fact that the ice age “has not passed that long” probably also says something about the time perspective in transportation policy.

In Voss said cork yes or no to K5. Still: if Hareide’s plan is to postpone the new E16, he probably would have chosen different words at the public meeting.

“K5 is the project that tells me the whole western region is most important,” said the Minister of Transport about the section that he himself has called “the road of death.

It seems very strange to talk so heatedly about K5 and then have to cancel it when the introduction to the new NTP comes in March of next year.

However, the question is whether you can consider removing the railroad from the project. Because it is the call for a new highway that is applied most strongly between the steep walls of the mountains. Railroad enthusiasts must realize this ourselves.

There are several elements who speaks in favor of cutting (parts of) the railway project.

First: the price. The entire project between Arna and Voss will cost tens of billions. It is now estimated that the first construction phase of Stanghelle alone will cost 25 billion crowns.

Secondly: The need. After all, it is possible to run trains on the Vossebanen that we have today.

Third: Politics. The government will probably go to the Progress Party to negotiate a majority. National FRP fights for K5. But if the box is empty, it is conceivable that they also saw a new path at the top.

Fourth: Technology. In a future with zero-emission autonomous cars, tech optimist Hareide can probably imagine that the big benefits of the train are slightly less important than today.

Still is also pages that suggest that Hareide may end up going both by road and by track. There may be a limit to how long Norway can operate a museum railway between the country’s two largest cities.

First: Semja. Unlike many other projects, K5 is practiced without opponents. Many Westerners will prefer the new European roads and railways, where, for example, Hordfast is more controversial.

Second: the promise. The government has previously said that this project will come.

In third place: The region. Last time, western Norway did too badly on the National Transport Plan compared to other parts of the country. Knut Bild Hareide from Bergen and Erna Solberg from Bergen probably can’t live with it again.

Fourth: Synergy. Dividing the project in two can probably generate an additional four to five billion bill compared to building it together. It seems unlikely that it will make the project more expensive than it already is.

And fifth: Knut Arild Hareide. I think he just wants to build a new railway between Arna and Voss.