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NORTH AND BELOW: FRP’s Transportation Policy Spokesperson Bård Hoksrud has reviewed the report and is clearly giving his thumb down. Photo: Frp
The proposal to eliminate the benefits of electric cars at the toll does not receive a deafening applause. FRP believes that road prices can be even more expensive for motorists.
On Monday, the Minister of Transport and Communications, Knut Arild Hareide, received a report on future revenues in the toll networks from a committee of experts appointed by the government last year.
Here it appears that toll revenues in Trondheim, Bergen, Nord-Jæren and Oslo will fall by 23 percent by 2030 and therefore the committee proposes to eliminate the benefits of electric cars in the toll ring. If you do nothing, your revenue will plummet and your traffic will increase.
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– Will tax more
FRP’s transport policy spokesman Bård Hoksrud believes that motorists may have to pay even more than today.
– It only took two minutes to get the good news that tolls will go down in the next ten years, until Knut Arild Hareide came up with a plan to tax motorists more through road prices. That says everything. The government is proposing a policy that will impose even more taxes on people, Hoksrud says in an email sent through Frp’s communications department at the Storting.
– In the report, you can also read that it is estimated that the estimated revenues from electronic road pricing will approximately triple in 2030 if it is introduced, compared to an alternative where there are only barriers. It just shows that the price of roads is a golden instrument for tax-hungry politicians to steal money from motorists, says Hoksrud, who believes cities should eliminate costly and poor solutions rather than “annoy motorists with more tolls or road prices. “
Hareide rejects
But Transport Minister Knut Arild Hareide rejects his planning to make motorists pay more at toll booths than they pay today.
– I have no ambition to increase the toll level in Norway. I am concerned that I have legitimacy for tolls and road prices the day the road prices come in. If tolls were completely eliminated, as Frp wants, we must cut road construction or public transport or we must cut in other areas such as school, the elderly or health, Hareide tells VG.
He points out that the report was commissioned ahead of time and that one should not settle for the level proposed by the committee on road pricing.
– We can put road prices much lower than the committee is proposing and still get significant revenue.
The report points out, under the heading “Revenues from tolls until 2030”, that with electronic road pricing “total revenues will be between two and three times higher than the current level, at the same time that the zero growth objective is reached” .
Total toll revenue is claimed to have increased from around NOK 5.6 billion in 2009 to around NOK 12.5 billion in 2019. In the four largest urban areas, revenues last year more than doubled compared to 2009 .
No immediate change
The report will reach a hearing and Hareide, who says he is positive about road prices, does not expect any immediate changes to the current collection system.
– That at some point we are need do something, the report is very clear there. But i won’t say when the right time is. I think it will be just the big political test in this, what time is the right time to do something, says the Minister of Transport to VG.
He believes that the report provides a good basis for debate and political decisions.
– There will be no immediate change here and now, but I think this report will make a long-term change.
Warns against wobbling
Liberal Party fiscal policy spokesman Ola Elvestuen believes the current level of electric cars should be maintained.
– The benefits of the electric car must be as good as necessary for Norway to reach the zero emission target for all new cars in Norway from 2025, it says in an email transmitted through the party’s information department.
– The goal is within reach, we must not hesitate now. We see that the policy works. The air has never been cleaner in Norwegian municipalities and climate emissions are declining for the fourth year in a row. There must be room for longevity in Norwegian politics, now we must let the electric car policy work. If we start to waver now, then we can end up like Denmark, says Elvestuen, noting that the Danes had to turn around and reintroduce the benefits of the electric car.
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WARNING: Former Minister of Climate and Environment Ola Elvestuen, photographed here a year ago. Photo: Thomas Nilsson / VG
Lukewarm ODM
ODM Vice President Arild Hermstad is not particularly enthusiastic about the proposal to phase out the benefits of the electric car.
– It should always pay to choose an electric car. Electric cars will eventually have to pay tolls as well, but the pollution must be more expensive, and therefore gasoline and diesel should pay more. Also, it should be more expensive to buy fossil cars, he writes in an email.
Hermstad does not reject road prices, but does not believe it is a solution in the near future.
– Road prices are not a quick solution either if they are going to replace tolls and are later, but I am not negative about it.
