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 APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200090023-1

The responsibility for highway construction and maintenance rests with the National Road Administration (NRA), an agency of the Ministry of Communications. There are local administrations of the NRA in each of Sweden's 25 regions. The larger cities and urban areas carry out their own construction and maintenance activities and receive subsidies from the state for principal through routes. About 54% of the total construction of rural roads is done by contractors, mainly on bridges and surfacing, while the NRA performs all other work.

Highway construction, particularly in bridging, grading, and draining, is difficult because of the extreme climate. Swedish highways require constant maintenance because of severe winters and heavy traffic. Sudden spring thaws and resultant floods, coupled with frozen subsoil, cause severe damage to surfaces and bases. Because optimum soil moisture content is rarely attained in most areas, soils are difficult to compact.

The average construction time for a highway project is 2 years. Earthmoving is done during the winter, surfacing, during the summer. In the northern two-thirds of the country the many deeply incised valleys necessitate relatively high bridges with long spans. Along the entire coast, bridges cover river estuaries and to islands must be high enough to permit uninterrupted waterway shipping. The many bogs and lakes require large amounts of rock and gravel for causeways, and it is sometimes necessary to remove unstable subsoils to construct the causeways. North of latitude 60° the terrain is characterized by more rugged relief and high mountains along the border of Norway. Because of the problems involved in combating the effects of snow and ice, considerable effort and expense is required to keep the roads open, and snow fences are used extensively as many regions. Large quantities of sand are spread on icy roads each winter. Severe damaging effects of spring thaws can be remedied only by extensive rebuilding. Unpaved roads often become soft and, in many places, impassable. Sweden produces ample amounts of steel and cement for construction and maintenance purposes but must rely on imports for bitumen.

Because of rapid increases in traffic and a decline in highway financing, the Ministry of Communication began an extensive review of the Twenty Year Road Plan (1958-77), and established the Road Planning Commission to undertake the review. The result was a new Fifteen Year Road Plan (1970-85) adopted in 1969. The new plan incorporates the major provisions of the old plan, which emphasized widening existing roads, extensive bridge construction and reconstruction, paving gravel roads, and improving alignment and reducing bottlenecks by building tunnels. A more ambitious program scheduled for completion in 1980 deals primarily with development in and around Stockholm, envisioning a series of belt throughways and connecting feeder roads to serve the main traffic routes approaching the center of the city.

The Road Planning Commission report estimated that by 1985 automobile registration would increase from 2.2 million to 4.6 million, or one auto per two inhabitants. The new plan calls for construction of 944 miles of limited-access four-lane divided motorways and 5,592 miles of national roads (four-lane undivided) and primary through routes (two-lane main highways) and maintenance of 60,000 miles of state-controlled highways and 40,000 miles of urban streets and private roads. Financing, most of which is to come from the annual road budget, will be the major impediment to accomplishing the objectives of the plan. Over the next 5 years increases in automobile registration fees and gasoline taxes are to net US$12 billion, which is to be earmarked for construction of the 944 miles of limited access four-lane divided motorways.

Bottlenecks that restrict highway traffic include narrow and low-capacity bridges, star curves and steep grades, ferries on some routes, and numerous underpasses. Poor surfaces, narrow roadways, and high traffic volumes in and near the larger population centers result in major restrictions to traffic. Roads in the north become impassable during spring thaws.

State Motor Traffic Boards grant licenses to establish and operate motor transport services, and long-distance bus service is provided almost exclusively by the Swedish State Railways, whose bus routes serve most of the country. Commercial freight rates are published annually, but these rates are general commodity rates and may be negotiated between trucker and shipper. Tolls and either ancillary charges incurred by the trucker are not included in the negotiated rates and are borne by the shipper.

In January 1970 the 2,349,815 motor vehicles registered in Sweden consisted of 2,193,635 passenger cars and 156,180 trucks and buses. Sweden is a significant producer of automobiles, but, because the variety of domestic models is limited, about two-thirds of domestic demand is met by imports. The principal sources of vehicle imports are West Germany and the United Kingdom..

Figure 3 lists characteristics of the most significant highways.

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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200090023-1