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TRANSPORT: What you need to know about Oslo’s Fornebu line

After months of uncertainty, a new metro line between Majorstuen and Fornebu has been given the green light to go ahead by Oslo City Council and Viken County Council. Here’s what residents need to know about the T-bane link. 

Published: 23 June 2022 15:31 CEST
Pictured is the Oslo metro system.
This is what residents should know about the Fornebu line. Pictured is the inside of one of Oslo's metro lines. Photo by Nikita Barskov on Unsplash

A new metro line between Majortstuen in Oslo and Fornebu in Bærum, just west of Oslo, has been given the green light, ending uncertainty over its future for the time being. 

Earlier this year, the project faced the axe due to spiralling costs, which saw the estimated price tag of the new metro line rise by 7 billion kroner. 

Oslo’s newest T-bane line will be the most significant investment in the metro system since the 60s or 70s, according to Sirin Stav from Oslo City Council. 

Since the airport at Fornebu closed in 1998, several links between the peninsula and the city centre have been pitched. 

The new 8-kilometre-long metro line will cost more than 31.0 billion kroner to complete. 

Construction on the project has already begun, and six new underground stations will be built. These are Skøyen, Vækerø, Lysaker, Fornebuporten, Flytårnet and Fornebu Senter. Plans will also see Majorstuen Metro Station upgraded. 

Fornebu, the former site of Oslo Airport, is home to a business park, shopping and residential areas. There are plans to build more than 11,000 new homes in the area and create 20,000 new jobs, according to Oslo Municipality. 

READ ALSO: What you might not have known about Oslo’s Diechman Bjørvika library

Oslo Municipality hopes the new line will provide an eco-friendly and accessible route between Fornebu and the city centre. Current bus routes are usually pretty busy, leading to many people driving in and out of the former site of Oslo airport. 

The stop at Majorstuen will connect the new line with the existing metro network in Oslo. 

Despite construction already starting nearly two years ago, it is unlikely the new line will open before 2029. 

Financing for the project comes from the government, the municipality, landowners, and the Oslo Package 3 toll agreement. 

As a result of the project going ahead, tolls as part of the Oslo Package 3 agreement will rise by 40 percent. This will happen in two steps, the first from September, with the second rise coming on January 1st 2024. 

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OSLO

Is Oslo’s project to speed up work permits on track?

The City of Oslo aims to cut work permit processing times in the capital down from nine months to just three days. The Local has contacted authorities to update readers on the latest developments.

Published: 6 May 2024 10:09 CEST
Is Oslo's project to speed up work permits on track?

For years, Norway has been grappling with a shortage of skilled professionals, notably in the technology and IT sectors.

Recognising the need to address this talent gap, The City of Oslo and other partners launched a pilot project in 2023 called Kompetansespor (Competence Track).

The primary goal was to reduce the lengthy wait times for skilled workers to get work permits from around nine months to three days.

READ ALSO: What’s next for Oslo’s plan to slash work permit waiting times?

But what is the current status of the project? And is the new super-fast work permit process any closer to becoming a reality?

How the project has evolved in 2024

Since its inception, Competence Track has evolved into a more ambitious project that goes beyond just cutting work permit times.

The project’s focus has shifted towards new goals, which mostly revolve around exploring the use of a “digital wallet” to streamline the immigration process.

To make this happen, partners involved in the project, such as the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI), will collaborate with other key stakeholders from the governmental, municipal, and private sectors.

READ MORE: How Norway’s permanent residence rules have been tweaked

As the UDI explains in a document seen by The Local, a digital wallet refers to “an electronic application or platform that allows users to securely store, manage, and share digital identity credentials and other types of digital data,” which plays a “central role in handling digital evidence or verifiable credentials in a digital ecosystem.”

The wallet allows relevant authorities to access the holder’s paperwork, rather than having documents and credentials stored separately across several portals. 

New goals

The main aim for 2024 is to develop and explore an efficient and user-friendly process flow that can support the immigration of skilled workers to Norway.

According to a document that the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) shared with The Local, other goals for the year include creating a prototype to test the efficacy of the digital wallet in improving immigration processes, investigating the feasibility of pre-qualifying employers to speed up the immigration process, and showcasing how collaboration across sectors can create better services for users.

The project remains committed to reducing administrative burdens, processing times, and information exchange accuracy, as well as preparing Norway for future challenges related to global mobility and digitalisation.

Meanwhile, the Oslo Business Region writes on its website that additional target groups such as students and family members of work permit applicants would be included in the fast track residence permit scheme. 

From the information available at the time of writing, it seems that project will still revolve around Oslo.

Gustav Try, an advisor at the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI), told The Local that the UDI’s Department of Managed Migration is currently working on a new test phase called “Pilot 2.0”.

“We are currently working on Pilot 2.0, but it is not finalised. The plan is to pilot it on selected students at the University of Oslo (UiO) in August. We are also considering piloting it on skilled workers, including UiO employees, throughout the autumn,” the department said.

Back in September, Thea Ullhaug Pope, senior content developer for the City of Oslo, told The Local that one of the long-term ambitions of the project is to try and get the scheme adopted by other regions and then nationally.

However, while the Competence Track project continues to progress, it seems unlikely that the initial ambition of reducing work permit waiting times from nine months to three days will be achieved on a mass scale anytime soon.

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