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 [...]

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 [...]

Trains to be faster, more comfortable

Norwegian state railway NSB is making more improvements to its train service around the Oslo area, but passengers nonethless faced another weekend of service disruption. State railroad Jernbaneverket planned more maintenance work and improvements of its own, which involves closing Oslo’s Central Station (Oslo S) from noon on Saturday until noon on Sunday. NSB announced [...]

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 [...]

Stoltenberg shakes up government

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg announced the replacement on Monday of two Center Party ministers in the government coalition he leads. The shake-up is widely viewed as a means of strengthening both his Labour Party-led government and the Center Party itself, which now has so little voter support that it’s dangerously close to losing its right [...]

New fare hike ‘shamelessly’ high

New public transit fares were taking effect in Oslo on Wednesday, and already have been been dubbed as “shamelessly” high. It now costs NOK 50 for a single-ride, full-fare ticket, the equivalent of nearly nine US dollars. “This is just way too expensive,” Gunnar Larssen, leader of the Norwegian capital’s merchants’ association Oslo Handelsstands Forening, [...]

Huge airline order sends stock flying

Trading on the Oslo Stock Exchange took off Wednesday morning after news broke that locally based airline Norwegian Air was ordering 222 new aircraft from both Boeing and Airbus, and also has an option to order 150 more. Norwegian had already been expanding, and can now boast the biggest airline deal ever struck in Europe. [...]

Majority support lower environmental speed limits

They may not have shown it in practice, but a new survey indicates that a majority of Oslo residents support reducing speed limits to help cut air pollution. Posted lower limits were widely ignored by motorists and proved unenforceable under current law. State and city officials admitted defeat last week, when an appeals court ruled [...]

Environmental speed limit collided with the law

Transportation officials tried to reduce air pollution levels in Oslo by lowering speed limits on main highways into the capital to just 60 kilometers per hour (about 40mph). A court ruling this week, however, deemed the speed limits unenforceable under current law. Motorists routinely defied the lower speed limits, which have been imposed in Oslo [...]

Norway’s roads fail UN standards

Many of Norway’s main highways are not up to standards set by UN agreements to which the country is party. Newspaper Aftenposten reports that many of the main highways in Norway, known as European highways because they are part of the continental “E-road network” and use the network’s signage, do not follow rules laid down [...]

Oslo Central Station reopens

Oslo Central Station, commonly referred to as “Oslo S,” reopened on Monday after weeks of essential maintenance, with promises that the work done would improve service and reduce problems. The work, which began on June 26, apparently completed upgrades that would usually take 18 months in just six weeks. Trains can now travel out of [...]

Crash-landing for airline inspectors’ free flights

Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) revealed over the weekend that former employees of Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) who went on to become inspectors for the Civil Aviation Administration (Luftfartstilsynet) kept their free-flight privileges. Not anymore. Transport Minister Magnhild Meltveit Kleppa from the Center Party quickly grounded the inspectors’ practice of accepting free flights not only for themselves but [...]

Snow snarled traffic, again

Wintertime tourists may enjoy Norway’s snow, but Oslo-area commuters faced more frustration on Thursday when a heavy snowfall halted trains, made driving hazardous and even was blamed for a tram derailment in the city. Police issued bulletins urging motorists to avoid using their cars. Trains from Skien to Oslo were cancelled after a snow- and [...]

Hurtigruten breaks through the ice

Norway’s passenger shipping line Hurtigruten hasn’t only sailed through a sea of financial trouble in recent years. Now it’s setting records in the winter off-season and charting a new course in Arctic areas. The Norwegian shipping line with its unique vessels that combine cruising, ferry- and cargo service has seen winter bookings jump 32 percent [...]

Train boss quits

After 10 years in the hot seat as head of Norwegian State Railways (NSB), Einar Enger has handed in his resignation. He would have liked the promised new investments in Norway’s train system to have come sooner. The soft-spoken 60-year-old says he has never considered quitting to protest the government’s earlier lack of funding for [...]

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