Urban mobility strategy for Stockholm 2030A strategic direction for world class city streets – summary

Why do we need an urban mobility strategy?

The City of Stockholm’s Vision 2030 describes how Stockholm will be an attractive place to live, work and visit. The city is growing. By the year 2030, the population of the City of Stockholm will have increased by around one quarter, with 1 million people living in the centre of a region of around two and a half million. The city will be developed in a way that will reduce the need to travel and at the same time make it possible to make more journeys by public transport, on foot and by bicycle. We shall be many more Stockholmers living and working on the same surface area, and this will bring new challenges for the transport system.

Strategy plan for the new City Plan, The Walkable City

The City of Stockholm, together with the Government of Sweden and other actors in the county of Stockholm has developed a plan for new roads and railways, including the City Line (a new tunnel for commuter trains), a city bypass, extensions to the metro and light rail lines and the completion of a ring road around central Stockholm. However, predictions for the growth of traffic indicate that these measures will not be enough. If everyone continues to travel as we do today, the number of road journeys affected by congestion during the rush hour will increase five-fold to 2030, despite the construction of new roads and railways. That means more queues, a longer rush hour and less reliable journey times for people travelling by car or bus. Quality of life will be degraded and it will be difficult to meet the City’s environmental targets.

It is not possible to build enough roads and streets so that everyone can travel by car while maintaining and developing the city’s good living standards. As long as the economy is sound and Stockholm continues to prosper the capacity on our roads will be fully used up. Many more people will need to be able to be transported on the same surface area as today.

This means that we need a proactive strategy which establishes principles for how the city’s roads and streets can transport more people and more goods on the same surface area, without having a negative impact on travel standards, if possible. We need to promote those modes of travel which transport most people on the least surface area.

What is the urban mobility strategy?

The streets of a city need to accommodate many different functions and activities. People need to travel using different modes; goods need to be transported; there needs to be room for shops, meetings and other social functions, as well as for parking, loading, street cleaning and utilities.

Our streets are not wide enough to accommodate everything. We would need a street at least 45 metres wide to accommodate all the most important functions. Most major streets in Stockholm are between 20 and 30 metres wide. We can’t prioritise everything everywhere. We have to choose what we want to prioritise – and choose what we can leave out.

This image shows how wide a major street would need to be to accommodate all functions. For comparison, Sveavägen is ca 30m wide, Hornsgatan is ca 20m wide.

If the City doesn’t prioritise between different functions, there is a risk that accessibility will be degraded, road safety will be worse and our street environments will be unattractive and unsafe. This strategy will provide the City’s politicians and officers support in making these difficult decisions, in order to provide a better balance between different needs on a strategic level.

The strategy lays down principles for prioritisation when it comes to both large and small decisions so that capacity and reliability in the road and street network can increase as well as contribute to a safe, attractive, environmentally friendly and healthier Stockholm.

The strategy only applies to the City’s roads and streets. That means that it is just one piece in a larger puzzle, where the regional network of roads, railways, public transport and waterways are the responsibility of many different authorities and companies. It is important to be aware of what the City has direct control over and where the City is just one of the many actors who need to work together to achieve our goals.

What does the strategy mean?

The Traffic Administration has proposed four planning principles for world class city streets:

A. Capacity in the road and street network shall increase, in the long term and sustainably, through more people choosing to travel by public transport, cycle or walk. How can more people travel if our roads are already full? We can increase the number of people who can travel on our streets without increasing the number of vehicles if more people travel in the same vehicle (buses or

trams) travel with smaller vehicles (bicycle) or without using a vehicle at all (walking).

The car is in many ways a fantastic way to travel, but if everyone chooses to travel by car in the rush hour in a big city, it very quickly becomes a bad alternative for everyone. Stockholmers already use public transport for many journeys and more and more people are discovering the advantages of cycling. Not everyone can change how they travel, but if some of us choose to travel by public transport, walk or cycle more often, there will be more room for those who need to travel in their own vehicle – for example for lorries and vans transporting goods.

Buses need to be able to reach their destinations – that means more bus lanes – and cycling need to be a real alternative for more people – that requires more cycle paths and cycle lanes. We will need to take away some space from cars or from parking, but only when we are sure that it will lead to more people being able to travel.

The image shows how much space is needed to transport a certain number of people, by car, by bike or by bus. Photo: Gävle kommun

B. Accessibility in the road and street network will be improved by increasing the journey speed for high capacity transport modes and increasing journey time reliability for everyone. Accessibility is about arriving at a destination, not getting there. Few people travel in the rush hour because they think it’s fun.

It perhaps doesn’t always feel like it, but congestion on the roads in Stockholm is a lot better than in many big cities. Queues and congestion are part of life in a big city and to a certain extent we have to learn to live with it. It’s never going to move quickly in the

rush hour, but we should be able to rely on how long a journey will take, no matter how we travel. Journey times need to be comparable whatever mode we choose. We also need to reduce the vulnerability of the road network, through a combination of the additional capacity that is planned as well as measures which optimise how we use the capacity we have. That requires a continued careful planning of roadworks and major construction projects. The City will also need to consider measures to reduce traffic in certain places and at certain times. Given that people who travel by car or by bike must park first before they reach their destination, it needs to be easier to find a parking space.

C. The role of our roads and streets as important places will be enhanced by improving walkability. A city’s streets and roads are so much more than a big machine to transport people and goods. They are the city’s living room, meeting space, coffee table or shop window. We can’t only focus on transport as a function, we have to consider how our streets work as places.

Everyone is a pedestrian for at least part of their journey, but transport planners have sometimes taken walking for granted where we have focused on moving vehicles around. We need to pay more attention to making our roads and streets more attractive, not least so that more people choose to walk for all or part of their journey, so we can take the pressure off roads and public transport for local journeys. We may need to reclaim some space from vehicles and give it to people, give pedestrians more time at certain traffic signals and calm the traffic down in places where lots of people walk.

D. The negative effects of road and street traffic will be minimised by making sure cars are only used for journeys where the car is most useful. To be able to get around easily is a part of city life. But travel has some negative consequences as well, like pollution, noise and traffic accidents. Big roads with lots of traffic cause barriers in the city.

Stockholm and Sweden have long worked towards reducing the negative impacts of road traffic and are is in many ways at the forefront in using alternative fuel and low emission vehicles, as well as improving road safety . With a rapidly expanding population it is important that Stockholm maintains and develops this position. That means that car traffic in urban environments cannot increase. We need to make sure that the new road infrastructure we build provides real relief from traffic in the places where people live and work.

To achieve these principles the Traffic Administration is proposing 14 specific, measurable targets which will set the pace of work and can be used to measure progress towards the principles. The targets are ambitious but achievable.

What happens now?

Setting goals and establishing principles is just the start of a process. A proactive approach is needed to achieve the goals, as well as monitoring progress. For this we need action plans which establish what is to be done in the short term in order to meet the goals

Programmes can describe which schemes will be developed, what they will cost, how they will contribute towards the goals and what other effects they will have. It is first when decisions about implementation are taken that budgets can be fixed, costs and benefits calculated and the precise consequences for all road users can be described.