Green Swedes

Stockholm, Sweden, is a bicycle- and transit-friendly city, but that doesn’t mean it has eliminated on-the-brakes congestion. There’s morning and afternoon rush hours that would be familiar to motorists all over the world.

Sweden is one of the few countries on track in compliance with the Kyoto Accords, but it is still a significant carbon dioxide (CO2) emitter, with gridlock being a major culprit. The city adds 20,000 people and traffic increases 3 to 4 percent every year. Even though 75 percent of Stockholm’s commuters use public transit, highways built to carry 60,000 cars a day now carry 130,000.

At V�gverket, Stockholm’s road authority, traffic assistance teams sit 24 hours a day in front of banks of TV monitors that cover every inch of the commuter highways. Like air traffic controllers, they can redirect traffic, post messages on programmable signs, shut down lanes or even close the entire tunnel.

Beginning in January of next year, traffic engineers will have another way of reducing car travel: congestion charging. At least temporarily, Stockholm will join London in charging a border-crossing fee to working-hour visitors coming into its central city. The plan is aimed at reducing rush-hour congestion by about 10 to 15 percent.

To counter congestion, drivers will pay the highest rate ($7.80) during morning and afternoon rush hours and the lowest during the middle of the workday. Exemptions will be provided to taxis and to "environmental" vehicles, including hybrids and the country’s own alternative-fueled cars.

Drivers will install transponders in their cars that will be read at 19 toll checkpoints around the city. All of the considerable revenue generated by Stockholm’s system will go toward public transit improvements – in a city that already offers its residents world-class rail and bus options.

An interesting aspect of Stockholm’s system (unlike London’s) is that it is only an 18-month trial, with its fate to be decided in a September 2006 referendum. Since only city residents can vote, (and not the suburbanites whose road traffic will increase) it may well receive a ringing endorsement.

Another nationally endorsed global-warming fighter in Sweden is the country’s growing fleet of bi-fuel Volvo vehicles that can run on sustainably produced biogas. Talk to Volvo’s environmental director, Anders K�rrberg, and he says up front that global warming and oil-supply challenges are real and a reason to consider alternative fuels.

Biogas is essentially methane and there are 21 plants in Sweden producing it for vehicles, nine of them using sewage sludge as raw material. Additional plants derive energy from household scraps, slaughterhouse waste and food industry leftovers.

Sweden is fast developing an infrastructure for biogas, now with 69 filling stations and another 40 by 2006. There are 5,300 biogas vehicles operating in Sweden this year, most of them cars, but also heavy vehicles and buses. The 69 filling stations were mostly in southern Sweden, where the fuel is catching on quickly. Federal subsidies keep the price of biogas below what Swedes would pay for gasoline. Refilling is a simple process, taking about as long as refueling a gasoline car. Volvo also offers ethanol-based cars in the Swedish market.

By 2020, Sweden could have one million cars running on the alternative fuel, which reduces nitrogen emissions by 50 to 70 percent over diesel. It’s just one way this country lays claim to the title of one of the greenest countries on Earth.