Reader’s letter This is a debate entry, written by an external contributor. The post expresses the writer’s views.
We recently received the tragic news that the government has proposed a new NTP (National Transport Plan), in which National Highway 19 has been excluded. This has provided further fertile ground for the city’s toll fee supporters, who are now using the NTP proposal as a crowbar for a contrived debate and an argument for the introduction of toll fees. An attempt is being made to create an image that the government is now deprioritizing Moss due to uncertainty about local funding. This is a myth that must be dispelled immediately, and misinformation that cannot gain a foothold in the political debate.
In December 2023, the municipal council decided that tolls that burden local traffic in Moss should not be introduced without a referendum being held. FrP is opposed to any form of tolls, and the decision is the result of our influence in the governing majority’s political platform. The claim is that this has sent shock waves through the Ministry of Transport, and resulted in Vedum, Støre and Nygård immediately getting cold feet in the case of RV19. Does this sound likely? In no way.
When FrP was in government, we ensured that RV 19 was included in NTP for the first time, after over 30 years of desert wandering. The current government has used the time after the election to downgrade expectations for future road construction, and the fear of being de-prioritised has been great in several parts of the country. We all understood which way it went when the Norwegian Public Roads Administration recommended withdrawing RV 19 from NTP in March 2023. This was 6 months before the election in Moss and 9 months before the municipal council decided on a referendum. The government has now decided to follow the advice of its professional body, and wants to prioritize other projects they believe are more important than ours. A lousy assessment, but it has nothing to do with our decision on the referendum.
The self-appointed toll general Gisle Haakonsen has modestly presented his own “rescue plan” for RV 19 in Moss newspaper. In short, this means that the FrP (and thus our voters) must be stripped of all power, the referendum must be canceled and tolls must be introduced. How much is not said, but the argument seems to be that the more tolls we are willing to pay, the greater the chance of getting the project into NTP. Should the bogs pay everything, so that the state gets a free highway? One must be careful about emphasizing arguments from activists such as Haakonsen, who is clearly characterized by several years in the position as head of department for MDG’s environmental council in Oslo municipality.
Some people are more concerned with introducing tolls as traffic regulation measures (read forcing people to drive less) than with these actually financing road solutions. For the Progress Party, this is about the fact that we do not want our citizens to pay tens of thousands a year to finance the state’s forced ferry traffic through our city. If the State does not want to pay for its own road, we should rather focus on stopping ferry traffic from passing through Moss. We in no way support sacrificing the city’s self-respect and our citizens’ finances, in a knee-jerk reaction to the State road authorities.
