Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) has been asking its audience to send in candidates for “Norway’s worst road.” The decision was announced during the weekend, but weary motorists who need to use it can’t expect any relief soon.
The dubious distinction of being the worst road in the county went to a stretch of the E16 highway, which currently serves as the main highway connecting the West Coast to eastern Norway and the highly populated Oslo area.
The stretch deemed the worst runs between Bergen and Voss, which is also a road used by commuters in the Bergen area and tens of thousands of tourists. It’s been plagued, however, by landslides and falling rocks, and must be closed much too often. There have been 41 traffic deaths on the stretch, several hundred people have been injured and the danger of mud-, snow- and rockslides is said to be constant.
State transport officials had to disappoint residents and visitors alike by admitting that no new road through the area can be finished for at least 11 more years. “It takes time to prepare such a project,” Transport Minister Ketil Solvik-Olsen of the Progress Party, told NRK. “We have to be certain where the road will be placed before we can order in the excavation machines. And we have to reach agreement with local politicians.”
A total of 3,000 proposals for “worst road” in the country were sent in to NRK, most of them in the mountainous area of Western Norway. The next-worst road was determined to be County Road 615 between Hyen and Storebru in Sogn og Fjordane and the third-worst was RV13 between Sand and Erfjord in Rogaland.
newsinenglish.no staff
