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Skåne travel: How this week's E6 motorway closure affects you

Richard Orange
Richard Orange - [email protected]
Skåne travel: How this week's E6 motorway closure affects you
The motorway is being shut while two prefabricated bridges are put into place. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

A section of Sweden's E6 motorway just north of Malmö will be completely closed from Thursday, forcing as many as 55,000 drivers a day to take an alternative route through the city of Lund.

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The diversion, which starts on October 11th, is scheduled to last for approximately two weeks, as two new bridges are put in place, one for a motorway slipway, and another for a temporary rail link. 
 
Jens-Peter Eisenschmidt, project manager for the railway expansion between Lund and Arlöv, advised those who are able to avoid travelling the route to do so.
 
"Those who can should work from home, plan to take time out, share rides, or choose any other measures to reduce traffic and save yourself from getting stuck in traffic during the close down," he told the Sydsvenskan newspaper. 
 
Örjan Berg, project communications officer at the Swedish Transport Agency, told The Local that the agency hoped to deter enough drivers to minimize disruption for road users in the southern Skåne region.
 
"In the simulations we have done, we can see that if we can reduce traffic by 10 percent, it will be easier for those who have to use the roads."  
 
The motorway will be closed down in both directions at the Alnarp junction north of Malmö, with traffic north diverted via the E22 to the north of Lund and traffic south taking the 103 and 108 roads, and then joining the E22 south of Lund. 
 
 
The Swedish Transport Administration has published an information page in English
 
The project is part of a 5 billion kronor upgrade to the railroad between Arlöv and Lund, which will see it expanded from two to four tracks, with a new station built in southern Lund and three others refurbished. 
 
The temporary rail bridge will allow rail traffic to be diverted while the expansion is carried out, while the new road bridge is required to make space at Alnarp junction for the new tracks. 
 
"The old motorway bridge was built in the 1960s, and in the future if you want to expand the E6 from four to six lanes, it would be impossible today," Berg said. "But with the new bridge solution we are able to expand from four to six lanes on the motorway." 
 
When the E22 motorway was temporarily closed down this April while a new bridge was put in place in northern Lund, there was less disruption than feared. 
 
But Berg told Sydsvenskan that the E6 shut-down promised to be more of a challenge. 
 
"The information effort was successful then, and we are still taking advantage of it now," he said. "But the shutdown of the E6 in will be greater than the shutdown of E22 when you look at the traffic volume: 40,000 vehicles per day pass Lund, while at Alnarp 55,000 vehicles pass per day."  
 
According to Mohammed Bdeiwi, who is managing the project for NCC, the construction project, if successful, will be an achievement.  
 
"This is the first time in Europe that two bridges have been pushed into place at the same time," he told Sydsvenskan. 
 
The biggest of the two bridges is 22 metres wide and weighs 5,000 tonnes, the other is 16 metres wide and weighs 4,000 tonnes.
 
The operation can be followed from a viewing platform at Sockervägen in Åkarp.

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