Expenses and Environmental Fears Derail Sweden's High-Speed Trains

It was the previous Moderate government that toyed with the idea of high-speed trains connecting Stockholm with both Malmö and Gothenburg and started the ball rolling. Should the idea become a reality, the trains will set off around 2030. This should reduce the traveling time between Stockholm and Gothenburg to two hours, compared to three hours today. A trip from Stockholm to Malmö will only take 2.5 hours, compared to 4.5 hours today.

The planning has continued under the present red-green alliance government, although the total cost still remains unclear. In December 2015, the Swedish Transport Administration came out with an estimate of 190-320 billion krona (23 to 40 billion dollars). After further investigations, the bill was trimmed down to a "mere" 250 billion krona (30 billion dollars). Sweden's Transport Agency argues that it is unlikely to reduce the final price to less than 200 billion krona (25 billion dollars). Regardless, this is set to become the largest investment in Sweden in 150 years.

The National Institute of Economic Research argues that the high cost means that the government will have to subsidize every ticket by 700-800 krona if the price for railway tickets continues to linger at its current levels.

Politicians in the metropolitan regions fear that the project will end up devouring all the money while having no impact on the country's major economic growth regions. Lotta Edholm of the opposition Left Party, vice mayor of Stockholm, called the high-speed railway a "bizarre" project.

"The government should reconsider and instead use this money for investment in the railways that we already have," Lotta Edholm told Swedish Television. "Two-thirds of Sweden lies north of the metropolitan area. The inhabitants there get no benefit from this project, but only the risk of investments in their railways being permanently put off," she said.

Among researchers, criticism of the high-speed railway is based on environmental factors, even if trains are often described as one of the least polluting means of transportation.

Even a very optimistic view of how much air traffic that can be directed to the high-speed railways will not offset the emissions that occur during construction," said Maria Börjesson, associate professor of transport analysis at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH).

"Researches show that it takes an incredible amount of energy to build high-speed railways. This is because of the enormous demand for steel and raw materials. Also, it takes a lot of energy to drill tunnels. High-speed rails have to go very straight, they cannot meander forward like the existent railways. Construction leads to emissions of carbon dioxide," she told Swedish Television.

Besides, many scientists argue that high-speed trains won't pay off in a sparsely populated country like Sweden.

"The very problem with high-speed trains in Sweden is that we are a country with a thin population. High-speed railways are good if you have a large amount of commuters at each end of a line, as in Beijing-Shanghai," Professor of Economics at the University of Örebro Lars Hultkrantz, told Swedish Radio.

However, little towns lucky enough to have been included in the project are radiating joy. For them, a high-speed railway station would be a lucky ticket, bringing along hotels, restaurants and shops and creating more jobs.