Solid attendance, great commitment and fruitful debates when OFV and BIL organized a breakfast seminar on the new NTP.
– Ambitions and goals must be followed up with appropriate measures. So I repeat what we have said many times before, both in NTP hearings and in the media: We need powerful, predictable and unbureaucratic incentives for commercial vehicles to speed up the green shift!
These were parts of the message BIL director Harald Jachwitz Andersen served to Transport Minister Jon-Ivar Nygård in a panel debate at the breakfast meeting organized by OFV and BIL on Tuesday 7 May.
Also on the panel was director Øyvind Solberg Thorsen from the Road Traffic Information Council. He praised the transport minister and the government for good management of expectations in the period before the presentation, but missed a more comprehensive plan.
– It becomes a bit much “piecemeal and divided”, and it seems as if the accident-laden county roads are a bit forgotten, he said.
Minister Nygård was able to give his speech on the National Transport Plan for 2025-2036, and insisted that this is a more realistic plan than before. He pointed out that we should improve and maintain where we can, and build new where we have to.
From left: Transport Minister Jon-Ivar Nygård, mayor Simen Nord (H) and mayor Andreas Handeland from BIL. Photo: Erik L. Solum
Several projects have been moved into the so-called “development portfolio”. One of these is RV19 through Moss, which is the port of call for Norway’s largest ferry service, and which relieves E18 through Oslo, Bærum and Asker. Right-wing mayor Simen Nord from Moss took part in a debate with the minister after his speech, and exemplified how both municipalities, residents and various companies are affected when a project such as a new national highway is put on hold.
– Moss is already a construction site as a result of the railway development, and a hub that connects large parts of Norway with Europe. Therefore, development of the railway and new RV19 should overlap and play together, says Simen Nord.
In the debate that followed, the panel discussed the priorities in NTP more holistically. In addition to the minister, BIL director Harald and OFV director Øyvind Solberg Thorsen, Morten Stordalen from FrP was invited. He sits on the Transport and Communications Committee at the Storting, and has previously sat in NTP negotiations. Perhaps not unexpectedly, he did not agree with the government’s priorities in the proposal.
– There is little realism in this NTP, believed Stordalen, who among other things reacted to the fact that initiated projects are shelved, which in turn leads to increased public resource use when these are eventually retrieved from the “development portfolio”.
– I would probably rather call it a “development portfolio” rather than a “development portfolio”, he concluded.
OFV and BIL thank you for the solid turnout, and extend an extra thank you to the politicians in the panel debates.