S chooses high-speed trains over infrastructure in the north.

Today we celebrate Christian Democrats on May Day in Sundsvall! And we do so with the announcement that the New East Coast Line between Gävle and Härnösand will be completed as soon as possible. Eight years ago, the Alliance government invested SEK 4.5 billion in building double track around Sundsvall to access the train crowd there. Eight years later, it has yielded good results. But still it is very crowded on the tracks. The 270 km long stretch between Gävle – Sundsvall – Härnösand is Sweden's longest bottleneck. This creates problems for both freight and passenger traffic. The Swedish Transport Administration now wants to delay the double-track expansion by at least seven years. The government will probably go on the same line, to afford its expensive and ill-prepared prestige project on new high-speed lines in southern Sweden. Such a decision would be disastrous. It will not work to expand the track capacity around Stockholm and in northern Norrland unless corresponding improvements are made on the routes in between. It's like building a house now, but postponing the construction of stairs. Yet that's exactly what the government seems to want to do. It sabotages the green transition that the industry is currently implementing, it lowers Sweden's competitiveness and delays ordinary people's train journeys. In addition, the government's disinterest in the New East Coast Line means that Sweden will have to pay back money to the EU, which has promised to be involved in paying for the double tracks. All this because the government would rather build high-speed lines that will cost huge sums and can take decades to finish building. Our message is that sweden should be trusted, including train traffic. It must be much easier to travel by train and as much fun as it is to build new tracks, it is wiser to fix the ones that already exist. That is why we have said no to the high-speed lines and yes to making the railway navigable again. The new East Coast Line is needed. It is needed for Gävleborgs and Westerners, but also for Västerbottens, Norrbottens and Stockholmers. It's to be built!