 | This article possibly contains unsourced predictions, speculative material, or accounts of events that might not occur. Information must be verifiable and based on reliable published sources. (May 2018) |
 | |
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Line | Västkustbanan |
| Location | Gothenburg, Sweden |
| Status | Under construction |
| System | West Coast Line |
| Start | Olskroken east of Göteborg C |
| End | Almedal south of Liseberg |
| No. of stations | 3 |
| Operation | |
| Opened | sometime in 2030, construction 6 years behind schedule[1][2][3] |
| Owner | Trafikverket |
| Character | Passenger trains |
| Technical | |
| Line length | 290 km |
| Track length | 8 km |
| No. of tracks | Double |
| Track gauge | 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) |
| Electrified | 15 kV 16.7 Hz AC |
The West Link (Swedish: Västlänken) is an underground railway tunnel under construction in Gothenburg. The purpose of the project is to increase capacity and reduce travel times.
Three new stations will be built – Gothenburg Grand Central,[4][5] Haga and Korsvägen – the latter two being underground stations.
Of the 1.02 million people (2018) who live in Greater Gothenburg (1.7 million in Västra Götaland County), 450,000 people live outside the Gothenburg municipality.[6] Approximately 175,000 people in the region commute to or from Gothenburg Municipality daily.[7] The majority of these people use cars for transportation and the roads in the region are overloaded. Better rail communications to different parts of Greater Gothenburg and better connections to current public transport networks would improve the situation. There is a political wish to reduce car dependency and increase public transport usage. Significant sums of money have been – and are being – invested in rail infrastructure in the other Swedish urban areas such as the Stockholm and Malmö regions (over 40 bn SEK each during 1990–2010). Rail investment in the greater Gothenburg area has not kept up with these other urban areas.
The largest improvement according to the proposed plan would be for commuters from places along the railways from Kungsbacka/Borås and who work or study near Haga station, where a large part of the University of Gothenburg is located. 15 minutes could be saved per journey. Time would be also saved on other journeys, for example around 5 minutes from Alingsås to Sahlgrenska or Chalmers. Travellers from the south to the Central Station would have a ten-minute longer journey than at present.
The main reason to build the tunnel is to increase capacity. The Gothenburg Central Station has no capacity for more trains in rush hours, which obstructs the wish to increase train traffic and build a new railway to Borås, the second largest city in the province, which has dense bus traffic to Gothenburg.
- ^ Radio, Sveriges (2022-05-17). "Västlänken kan försenas med fyra år – och fördyras". Sveriges Radio (in Swedish). Retrieved 2023-12-27.
- ^ Näslund, Lars; Ingemarsson, Jenny (2023-08-31). "Ny prognos: Västlänken försenas med flera år – fördyras med sex miljarder". DN.se (in Swedish). Retrieved 2023-12-27.
- ^ Siljevall, Anders (2023-08-31). "Nya prognosen: Så försenad och så mycket dyrare blir Västlänken". Byggindustrin (in Swedish). Retrieved 2023-12-27.
- ^ "Peab bygger ut Göteborg central". SvD.se (in Swedish). 2024-07-10. Retrieved 2024-07-10.
- ^ "Peab bygger stationshus för 870 miljoner". Byggindustrin (in Swedish). 2024-07-10. Retrieved 2024-07-10.
- ^ "Folkmängd i riket, län och kommuner 31 mars 2018 och befolkningsförändringar 1 januari–31 mars 2018". Archived from the original on 2018-06-20. Retrieved 2019-01-06.
- ^ "Antal pendlare per län och kommun, 2017" [Number of commuters per county and municipality]. Statistiska Centralbyrån (in Swedish). Retrieved 2019-01-07.