DEBATE. The history of the car is around a hundred years old, and motoring has in this time left its deep mark on our entire society. Since the 1950s, the car has guided the planning of traffic infrastructure.
Highways leading straight into the heart of cities have been built, and valuable old buildings have been demolished to make way for wide streets with parking spaces. Motorways have also been built around the cities, which have sucked the vitality out of urban centers around the country.
Even today, the planning of the infrastructure is guided by an expected increase in car traffic, where very old plans for road construction are often left as a basis. The clearest example is the construction of a motor traffic link in southern Stockholm, the Södertörn Interconnection.
Building new motorways and motorways for increased car traffic in the middle of a climate crisis is both irresponsible and tone-deaf.
In addition to the construction costing SEK 20 billion, it leads to increased car traffic and increased emissions of greenhouse gases, which the Swedish Transport Agency also noted in its decision basis.
The construction of the new motor traffic route at Södertörn has now been given the green light by both the Swedish Transport Administration and the government. The Nature Conservation Society appealed last year against the Swedish Transport Administration’s decision, but the government has now approved the construction.
The motorway construction at Södertörn will only be economically viable if road traffic increases, where, for example, costs for accidents, travel time gains and costs for the construction itself are factored in. This is shown in a new report from Trivector, which the Norwegian Nature Conservation Society ordered.
Unnecessary and unprofitable
If the starting point is instead a transport-efficient society, with current or lower car traffic, the motorway becomes both unnecessary and unprofitable. Then investments in rail, public transport, cycling and pedestrian traffic will instead be profitable.
It is incomprehensible that the government invests billions in unprofitable and climate-damaging highways and motor traffic routes in the middle of a climate crisis. The government does not seem at all interested in streamlining car traffic, which can be seen in a series of political decisions.
The examples are lining up: Reduced fuel tax, halted reform of travel deductions, scrapped urban environmental agreements for public transport routes in cities, reduced railway maintenance and now the decision to build the Södertörn Cross-Connection. Electrification is good, but not enough to quickly reduce climate emissions.
New thinking
The government should learn from a number of countries around Europe that have reformed their infrastructure and social planning, based on reduced car traffic.
It is time for a new way of thinking about traffic in Sweden as well. More is not always better. Reducing car traffic is neither backward-looking nor hostile to growth, but is about wise efficiencies and new solutions for a modern society without greenhouse gas emissions.
The government must:
Stop building new motorways and motorways
Reconsider planned road projects in relation to climate goals
Ensure that the new national infrastructure plan has a broad range of measures to meet environmental and climate goals
In order to face the climate crisis and reach the climate goals, car traffic must be reduced. Building new motorways and motorways for increased car traffic in the middle of a climate crisis is both irresponsible and tone-deaf.
By Beatrice Rindevall
chairman Nature Conservation Society
Jens Forsmark
expert on sustainable transport The Norwegian Nature Conservation Society
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