The Norwegian Public Roads Administration will change the thresholds for when motorways are built in Norway. They want a higher threshold for large four-lane highways – and allow for lower speeds.
Updated less than 10 minutes ago
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The result may be that the large four-lane roads with a speed limit of 110 km / h become less frequent in Norway, and that it can be chosen more often:
- Road with two / three fields and 90 kilometers per hour.
- Or a narrow four-lane road with a speed limit of 90 or 100 kilometers per hour.
It shows a professional recommendation they have sent to the Ministry of Transport.
– We recommend more use of two- to three-lane roads for larger traffic volumes than is possible today. A two to three lane road will provide overtaking opportunities and be a good alternative when there is not so much traffic that we need four lanes, says section manager Tanja Loftsgarden in the Norwegian Public Roads Administration.
The recommendation comes in the middle of a heated political debate about how much should be invested in new, major motorways in Norway. And whether narrower motorways with lower speeds should be built, to save more nature.
Two projects in Eastern Norway can be changed
The Norwegian Public Roads Administration highlights two of its projects that can be affected:
- No motorway Kongsberg-Notodden: The Norwegian Public Roads Administration says it is relevant to go from a narrow four-lane road with 110 km / h to 2/3 lane and 90 kilometers per hour on the Saggrenda-Elgsjø section.
- Narrower motorway towards Sweden: The development of the E18 Retvet-Vinterbro will, among other things, provide a better road connection to Sweden. It was planned for 110 km / h, but the Norwegian Public Roads Administration will consider changing to 100 km / h.
See more about which projects they do not recommend changes for further down the case. First, to what changes the Norwegian Public Roads Administration is actually proposing.
This is how they will raise the highway threshold
- Higher threshold for four-lane: Today, a four-lane motorway can be built for roads with up to 6,000 vehicles a day. They want to raise it to 8000. So they want that threshold for how much traffic minimum must to, should be higher.
- Higher threshold for 110 km / h: They will also raise the threshold for when a wide four-lane motorway is to be built at 110 km / h. Today, the threshold is 12,000 vehicles a day, they want to raise it to 15,000.
–- Opens for lower speed: Today it is only planned for four-lane motorways with a speed limit of 110 km / h. The Norwegian Public Roads Administration opens up for motorways that can also be built for 90 and 100 km / h, which makes it easier to adapt the road to the terrain.
– A 110 motorway requires very rigid alignment, the road must be laid straight, with few turns and we must have good visibility requirements to get a safe road. And it requires quite a lot of area, points out Loftsgarden in the Norwegian Public Roads Administration.
– By enabling 90 and 100 on such roads, we will be able to adapt the road more to the landscape, lay it outside vulnerable areas and prevent that we need to spend so much area and so much money on building roads, says veivesen-top.
On these major road projects, they do not recommend changes
So what will be the consequences for other road projects? New Roads has been given responsibility for a large part of the motorway projects. The Norwegian Public Roads Administration has reviewed 13 projects of is responsible for, with four fields on all or part of the section. Five of them had planned for a speed limit of 110 km / h.
And in two cases, they propose changes:
The government says that the purpose of asking the Norwegian Public Roads Administration to look at this was to see if it is possible to extract climate benefits and cut costs.
– This is an interesting proposal. This will mean that those who build the road can adapt the roads more to the terrain and the need. We will now take a closer look at this before we conclude, writes Minister of Transport Jon-Ivar Nygård in a press release.
New Roads will also send, during Wednesday, such a review of its projects to the Ministry of Transport and Communications.
For those who are particularly interested, these are the new road standards proposed by the Norwegian Public Roads Administration:
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