Citybanan

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This article or section contains information about a planned or expected future tunnel.
It may contain information of a speculative nature and the content may change dramatically as the construction and/or completion of the tunnel approaches, and more information becomes available.

Citybanan is a planned railway tunnel that was to be built beneath central Stockholm in Sweden. The project was proposed by the national Railways, SJ, in 1988 and has, after initially being disregarded as too expensive, been seriously considered since 2002. In 2006, the national railway management authority Banverket agreed with the city and county of Stockholm on the financing of the project; and the last step in the planning process is scheduled for 2006-2007. The cost of the tunnel and stations is estimated to 13.5 billion SEK. The newAlliance government in Sweden, after the general elections of 2006, has however put the project in question. Representatives of the government announced on October 1 of that year that they were scrapping Citybanan in favor of building a third railway track through the city. In December 2006, however, the government's appointed expert, after a renewed assessment of the project, recommended building the tunnel.

The tunnel is planned with a length of 6 km (4 mi), with two rail tracks and two new commuter rail stations: City, beneath the current Metro station T-Centralen; and Odenplan, at Odenplan next to the metro station there. Traffic had been planned to start somewhere between 2013 and 2016.

The tunnel would significantly improve the traffic throughput to and from south of Stockholm as there are only two rail tracks in that direction from Stockholm Central Station, the same number that were in place in 1871 when rail tracks were initially built there. Placing the commuter rail traffic into a tunnel of its own will thus open up for more of other rail traffic through the central station.

Seen from south to north, the route the Citybanan tunnel would have is forking off the Sammanbindningsbanan after the Stockholms södra station on Södermalm, continuing beneath the bay bottom of Riddarfjärden at Söderström, beneath the islet of Riddarholmen, beneath Riddarfjärden at Norrström, to the new City station; after which it will continue beneath the Norrmalm quarter to the Odenplan station, then beneath the Vasastaden quarter to join with Norra stambanan at Tomteboda.