At least part of a proposed Swedish plan to better connect the Øresund region looks unlikely to see the light of day anytime soon. 

 

A tunnel between Helsingør and Helsingborg would be too expensive and is not a top priority, according to the traffic spokespersons of three Danish parties. 

 

Government party the Social Liberals (Radikale Venstre) said that rather than digging a tunnel to Helsingborg, Denmark should first focus on the completion of the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link connecting the Danish island of Lolland with the German island of Fehmarn. The project is expected to be completed in 2021 and will be the largest immersed tunnel in the world. 

 

“I think we should complete the Fehmarn connection before throwing ourselves into something new,” the Social Liberals’ Andreas Steenberg told public broadcaster DR. “[The Helsingborg] connection is not something we are prioritising.”

 

Opposition party Venstre’s traffic spokesperson, Kristian Pihl Lorentzen, said the Swedish proposal makes sense but would cost too much.

 

“I can understand the Swedish wish for a connection – one only needs to look at a map of Europe to see that – but it is not something we could support on this side of 2030,” he told DR. “It would be a gigantic infrastructure project, in which we would have to extend the motorway network and railways in the highly-populated northern Zealand area. I don’t imagine the Swedes are going to pay for that.”

 

The Helsingør-Helsingborg tunnel was one of six new connections across the Øresund strait proposed in a report from Sweden-based construction company Skanska and Swedish consultancy firm Sweco. 

 

Among the other proposals were a “super bicycle path” on the Øresund Bridge and the extension of Copenhagen’s metro system to Malmö.