“Bergen will not become a backwater that the ferry still has to go to Stord”

Bergen will not become a backwater because the ferry still has to go to Stord.

There are many good argument for building a bridge over Bjørnafjorden. That Bergen will become a backwater without a better road to Stavanger is not one of them.

The claim comes from the Business Association in the Stavanger region. In a few years they will have a new motorway to Kristiansand and a tunnel to Haugesund. Without Hordfast, Bergen will not be interesting for Stavanger.

“B for Bergen and B for backwater. The city can only lie there between the mountains. For us it means goodbye”, says Harald Minge in the business association.

He has had to cook a drawing that shows everything north and east of Bjørnafjorden as gray and dreary. Because as we all know: Apple trees by the Hardangerfjord will die without a bridge between Osøyro and Stord.

Everything around Stavanger – from Karmøy to Kristiansand – is colorful and alive.

Siddisane measures his self-image with a broad brush.

The Bergen area gets NOK 70 billion in the National Transport Plan (NTP) if the legislation materializes in asphalt, rails and tunnels.

Hordfast would demand 50 billion more. They may not understand it in Stavanger, but the projects that receive money are necessary for Bergen to develop.

There will be a new road and track towards Voss, even if the people of Stavanger hardly understand why road safety, safer roads, faster railways and better freight capacity are prioritized over freedom of ferries in the direction of Siddisane.

Because, as Minge says: “We see them turning their backs on the West and turning their eyes to the mountains.” Voss is also Vestland.

The Nordhordland tunnel is also in, although not for the first six years. This is part of the E39 which is actually too narrow to have a yellow median strip, but which has more traffic than the navel of the world – the motorway at Ålgård, south of Stavanger.

Bergen will also get a light rail to Åsane and a better Fløyfjelltunnel – if the city council agrees to the money. This lane is absolutely necessary to take away the growth that is to come in Bergen.

In spite of the plans from the south, Bergen is not left fallow by the fact that the ferries still have to leave from Halhjem.

It would have been nice if there was also room for Hordfast.

Because it is important to build Western Norway together. The ferries are chronic queue driving and create unnecessary barriers in our part of the country – especially for business.

But there are plenty of such barriers in and around Bergen. The city has a transport system that collapses when a car runs out of fuel.

Then it should be possible for people in Stavanger to understand that a bridge that will carry 7,000–11,000 cars a day is not a top priority.

Hordfast-ropa doesn’t just come from Stavanger. Øyvind Kyvik (H) is deputy mayor of Stord. In an interview together with many Høgre people from Sunnhordland, he said that Stavanger is the new Westland capital.

It is absurd. Because Western Norway is more than Stavanger, Karmøy and Stord. There is no road that can make Stavanger the center of the region.

“We feel forgotten down in the south”, Bømlo’s deputy mayor Rangfrid Sønstebø (H) follows up. “Bergen for us will now be what Oslo is for the people of Bergen. So, they don’t see us and they don’t hear us.”

Bergen should usually take such harsh words seriously. Because Bergen should be bigger than the city, as the capital of Western Norway. But the designation completely lacks substance.

A few years ago so the backs the backsFrom Norse: people from Rogaland no to being part of a large western county.

Rogaland chose åleinegong. And now they are to be the focal point for despised Høgre-sunnhordlanders? It makes no sense.

The grudge against Bergen is about the city’s former city council not prioritizing Hordfast in its NTP input last year. It is therefore somewhat ironic that the bridge would probably have stood much stronger if Rogaland had joined Vestland.

It’s something very strange with Stord politicians complaining about being abandoned by their neighbor when they don’t get a bridge to Osøyro and Bergen.

For many years, Kvinnherad has tried to get Stord to help build a new ferry terminal on the east side of the island, in order to shorten the journey time.

Today’s ferry boat has been an intermediate solution since 2003.

«Stord is the stuff»said the then Kvinnherad mayor Peder Sjo Slettebø (H) in 2016, when he moved in with an advertisement in Sunnhordland to buy a plot of land in Stord.

He simply wanted to clean up after himself.

Hordfast is bigger than a new ferry to Kvinnherad. But it is still interesting how strong the reactions are when it is Stord who faces a challenge they inflict on others.

It is understandable that Sunnhordland and partly Stavanger are frustrated that Hordfast is now being refused. The bridge has been planned and promised for a long time.

But in the multitude of good arguments for Hordfast and a more united western country, the Stavanger business community decided to go for a silly attack on Bergen. If this is Rogaland’s colorful life force, they can have it to themselves.

Just like his county.