A glimmer of light looms for the 40,000 people who commute daily between Uppsala and Stockholm. Last Wednesday, the government announced that it was investing a lot of money to speed up the expansion of the train line.
That the new four-track even gets rid of is a victory. Last year warned the Swedish Transport Administration so that there would be no money left over for the expansion. The needs were so great elsewhere.
Finally, the government realized the crying need and quadrupled the allocation from SEK 2.5 to 10 billion.
Maybe it is now Stockholm and Uppsala that are being built together for real. Without delays, the journey takes just over 30 minutes, no further than to many of the capital’s suburbs. Still, the constant train commotion makes the distance feel greater. Not knowing when or if you will arrive at work or pick up at the preschool means that many people exclude commuting as an alternative.
Without delays, the journey takes just over 30 minutes, no further than to many of the capital’s suburbs. Still, the train noise makes the distance feel greater.
The investment is just in time. More and more people can and want to work from home for parts of the week, which increases the opportunities to settle at a greater distance from the workplace. Two new stations and tens of thousands of apartments have already been planned along the railway line.
In addition, Stockholm is is one of Europe’s fastest growing capital regions. It requires a standard railway, but train traffic has always been a stumbling block: on average, six trains a day are more than 20 minutes late.
More departures and safer arrival times are now promised. In the near future, the investment in the Uppsala shuttle will thus make a concrete benefit to society.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the planned high-speed lines, which remain in the “historic investment” in infrastructure that the government presented on Monday. Despite all the calculations pointing to multi-billion loss for society and little climate benefit, the project has still not been banished to the bin.
It will take some time decades before the tracks are completed and the budget is expected to land on insane SEK 300 billion.
Why not prioritize refurbishing the existing network? For 300 billion, you get quite a few lighthouses.
Read several texts by Emma Høen Bustos.