Fear of Rail Loss in Hareide Transportation Plan – NRK Norway – Summary of news from different parts of the country

KrF’s Minister of Transport and Communications tells Aftenposten that the current National Transport Plan (NTP) is unrealistic.

The last time it was reviewed was in 2017. At that time, the Storting agreed to spend NOK 1 billion on roads, railways, airports and ports over the next twelve years.

– According to price estimates, we were short of NOK 130 billion at the time, Knut Arild Hareide tells the newspaper.

The plan will be reviewed next year. So Hareide heralds a whole new way of thinking. Developments that have had a “safe place” can disappear or be postponed indefinitely.

– too much space

– One thing Hareide must have, and that is that he is honest about it. “Our jaws dropped,” says SV transport policy spokesman Arne Nævra.

Hareide says it has not been decided what will come out. However, he puts it in a way that indicates that the outer Intercity, the double-track railway to Lillehammer, Skien and Sarpsborg, Fredrikstad and Halden, is in a bad position. On the Østfold line, the price estimates have been multiplied.

These are signs that Arne Nævra does not appreciate.

– I fear that the railroad and interurban development will lose. It has been postponed for several years.

– But we just shouldn’t do that. There is only one mode of transport that can transport so many people to work in the capital, and that is the railway, says Nævra.

– Adventurous projects

The SV politician makes more sense for the suggestion that parts of the E39 without ferries be reconsidered in western Norway.

– Instead of many of the adventurous projects on the E39 without shuttles for billions of crowns, we should have frequent zero-emission shuttles.

– Hareide must do something with the roads mantra that it has inherited from two former FRP ministers. You should stop building motorways with a speed limit of 110 km / h in places where it is not necessary, says Arne Nævra, and mentions the section between Kristiansand and Stavanger as an example.

– Bankruptcy assets

Labor Party transport policy spokesman Sverre Myrli says he understands the situation Hareide is in.

– Actually, you have taken over a bankrupt property after two transport ministers from the Progress Party. What Ketil Solvik-Olsen and Jon Georg Dale have promised, and the expectations that have been raised, that reality is catching up with Hareide now, Myrli says.

But although Myrli is aware that the money market is not living up to expectations, it is not so clear what should be cut.

– For the Labor Party, it is irrelevant to start having less ambitions for the development of transport in Norway.

– What about the E39 without a ferry?

– The E39 without a ferry is seven fjord crossings and not a project that many present to you. There are three of the seven fjord crossings located in the current NTP.

– What will happen to the last four is, of course, uncertain, but both the three approved fjord crossings, interurban development and other approved projects will have a lot to change, says Sverre Myrli.

New ways

The vice chairman of the Storting Transportation Committee of the Progress Party, Bård Hoksrud, responds in this way to criticism that his party has set higher expectations than it has money to:

– We made sure to launch New Roads, the new road company that builds more roads faster and cheaper. I think we should look the same for the railways, because reducing costs is also what worries the Progress Party.

He thinks it is “petty and confusing” of Knut Arild Hareide to want to reduce the ambitions of the National Transportation Plan.

– The ruling Progress Party has increased the transportation budget by 80 percent. We want to be offensive and build more roads and railroads because it is important to people and businesses across the country, Hoksrud says.

Former Transport Minister Ketil Solvik-Olsen (Frp) says Labor Party proposed adding NTP plus projects when the Storting considered it in 2017 without increasing allocations in particular.

– So now it’s silly to say that the original plan was too complete, says Solvik-Olsen.