Reaction mixed to transport plan

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg called it the biggest commitment to public transportation projects ever made in Norway, but his left-center government’s release of its new plan for transportation investment during the next 10 years was met with both enthusiasm and criticism over the weekend. Officials in Oslo, where traffic congestion is a major problem, weren’t [...]

Deadly mass crash closed highway

UPDATED: Five cars and at least one truck were involved in a dramatic collision on the heavily trafficked E18 highway west of Oslo Thursday morning. One person was killed, several more were severely injured and the main artery into Oslo was closed in both directions. Police later arrested a man who fled the scene, suspecting that [...]

Transport plans don’t meet goals

Norwegian politicians continue to spend huge amounts of public funds on bridges, roads and tunnels in outlying areas that benefit as few as a hundred residents or less, while hundreds of thousands of commuters in metropolitan areas are left to face heavy traffic or unreliable public transit systems every day. Now much of the justification [...]

Oslo’s main airport beats its rivals

Oslo’s main airport at Gardermoen, OSL, has now emerged as the largest in the Nordic region, with more passenger traffic last month than the airports at Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki or Reykjavik. It’s the first time OSL has had more traffic than Copenhagen (CPH). Even though Norway’s population is much smaller than Sweden’s and also smaller [...]

County roads in worse shape than expected

Complaints have raged for years over the sorry state of Norwegian highways around the country, most of  which are just two lanes and narrow. A new report has confirmed that county roads are in even worse shape than the state highways, and that it will cost as much as NOK 75 billion to make needed [...]

Warmer winter weather turned fatal

After an extended period of bitterly cold temperatures, thermometers rose especially in southern Norway over the weekend. Fresh snow that turned to rain in some areas, however, led to slippery roads and extremely hazardous driving conditions from north to south. Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) reported multiple accidents and traffic that could only be described as chaotic. [...]

Electrical trouble halted trains

All train traffic through Oslo’s busy central station (Oslo S) ground to a halt Sunday afternoon because of a grounding problem in the station’s electrical system. The disruption delayed thousands of passengers traveling during the Christmas holiday rush. Traffic stood still for around a half-hour before service could begin to get back on track, according [...]

Challenges loom for commuters

More than 100,000 Norwegians are being warned that it may be challenging to get to and from work next week and just about anywhere else. Public transit systems in the southeastern portion of the country will undergo major route changes from December 9, while state meteorologists were forecasting snow at the same time. A deep [...]

Ex-police chief caught speeding

Anstein Gjengedal, the former chief of police in Oslo, got off easily when he was pulled over for excessive speeding last month. Now he’s under investigation after all, following complaints from motorists who claimed his fast and aggressive driving frankly scared them. Gjengedal may have been influenced by a long career with access to police [...]

Wedding convoy caused problems

A traditional wedding procession involving guests from Chechnya ended with fights and a major traffic jam in Oslo over the weekend. Police had their hands full trying to sort out the conflicts that arose. They ensured when the wedding party  started driving from Lørenskog, northeast of Oslo, into the city on Sunday afternoon. The drivers [...]

French tourist jailed for speeding

A French tourist who was caught driving at excessive speed over a scenic mountain highway in north-central Norway has lost his driver’s license and been sentenced to 18 days in prison. It’s an unusually harsh punishment, especially against a visitor to Norway, but prosecutors claimed the French motorist put others’ lives in danger. Newspaper Avisa [...]

Rise in car sales signals continued confidence

Norwegians bought more cars last month than they did in July of last year. Economists view the rise as a sign  that consumer confidence remains high despite some government warnings that tougher times may be in store. A total of 50,846 cars were purchased in July, 11,920 of them brand new and 38,926 used. The [...]

Road toll system baffles visitors

Thousands of drivers of foreign-registered vehicles on Norwegian roads aren’t paying road tolls, not necessarily because they’re trying to cheat the system, but because they don’t understand how the automatic toll system works. Some end up getting a surprise bill in the mail after they’ve arrived back home. Norwegian officials can only hope the visitors [...]

Oslo may restrict driving with diesel

Norway’s government once urged Norwegians to buy cars that use diesel, thinking they were less polluting, but later determined that wasn’t true because of their nitrogen oxide emissions. Now Oslo’s city government is poised to ban driving with diesel on cold winter days, to reduce smog in the capital. Both the mayor of Oslo, Fabian [...]

Critics blast ending to moose drama

The latest urban misadventure of a Norwegian moose over the weekend ended not only with shots inside a busy train tunnel, but with criticism from animal rights group NOAH. No thought was given, the group claims, to how frightened the moose must have been, while a deer suffered the same sad fate. The drama began [...]

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