Ah…the complacency of being oil rich. So complacent, in fact, that we forget about our infrastructure. That’s the picture painted by the Norwegian newspaper aftenposten.no this morning, in their seemingly never-ending series of articles about the increasingly delapidated Norwegian road network. The reason for why things are the way they are: The literally well-oiled economy.

A matter of prioritization

Instead of prioritizing infrastructure development, like many other countries , Norway has put much of its oil revenues into the social welfare system, hospitals, education, schools, kindergardens and so on.  Although this has resulted in one of the world’s best social welfare systems, it has neglected building better roads, which by many is seen as THE prerequisite for a contry’s economy.

The result

Norway has some 8500 kms of  “major highways” (“stamveg” in Norwegian), important links between regions or between population centers in a region. Merely 8% of these are classified as having a full appropriate standard, 56% are classified as below acceptance levels. No wonder people complain…

Without roads, businesses are facing high transportation costs, which makes them less competitive. Besides the fact that we consumers end up having to pay more for their services. And more for our own travels.

Related

• husdal.com – a list of all posts about Norwegian roads
• tu.no – Norsk veisatsing har vært elendig
• aftenposten.no –  56 prosent av stamveiene har “ikke brukbar standard”
• aftenposten.no – Oljen har ødelagt for veiutbygging
• nettavisen.no – Norsk veisatsing har vært elendig
• tv2.no – Navarsete slakter veisatsing