Signal & Brus

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I drive an electric car without studded tyres. So on the few occasions when I need to visit Stockholm by car, the new prohibition plans are unlikely to affect me. But seriously: Sweden’s capital should be a capital city, not a fucking eco-park.

The red-green city government wants to expand the planned low-emission zone in the city centre and gradually ban studded tyres throughout the inner city. The low-emission zone is still awaiting a decision from the Swedish Transport Agency, and the steps towards a comprehensive ban on studded tyres are to be investigated. These are therefore plans, not a ban that has already been introduced across Stockholm.

But the direction is clear. Visitors are expected to adapt to the Green Party environmentalist’s dream.

A major city means life and energy. Businesses need deliveries. Tour buses arrive with visitors. People visit relatives, carry suitcases and transport things that cannot be tucked under an arm on the metro. Stockholm also belongs to those who work there, deliver there or come to visit.

Anyone who wants peace and quiet, clean air and no neighbours engaged in disruptive activities might not choose to live in the middle of a major city. Making access depend on occasional visitors changing cars or swapping tyres for a single errand is madness.

Start instead with residents’ parking discount.

The City of Stockholm already allows people with resident parking permits to pay a lower fee. My proposal is to remove that discount for fossil-fuel cars and cars with studded tyres. Anyone who wants to keep such a car can pay the standard rate or arrange other parking.

That would give inner-city residents with the metro around the corner a reason to consider whether they really need their own car—or at least a fossil-fuel car with studs. Why should the city subsidise precisely that kind of car ownership while making things harder for people who need to get there occasionally?

If fewer people park on the street long-term, more spaces can become available to visitors. Combine that with functional loading zones and short-stay parking, and fewer people will have to circle the blocks when carrying in suitcases or delivering a few crates of sourdough bread to the green café where the inner city’s latte dads are sitting.

The sourdough bread does not ride the metro by itself.

Background: Expressen on the prohibition plans. See also the City of Stockholm’s information on existing and approved bans on studded tyres.

Image: AI-generated illustration.