The fifth post in this series will be showing Stockholm Central Station redevelopment, a construction of a new commuter station, which relates to the Citybanan project we presented last week.
Stockholm has earned a reputation as a leader in urban sustainability. In 2010, Stockholm was declared the first European Green Capital. The European Commission’s idea with the award is to achieve a general improvement of urban living environments by annually appointing a city that can be a model for others and disseminate best practices and share experiences, thoughts and ideas with other cities.
Environmental and economic performance have gained increasing recognition for Stockholm. It is an attractive place to live, invest and work because of its stable business environment, solid economic growth and exceptional environmental assets.
The Stockholm commuter railway is called the Pendeltåg and is a 211 km system of standard gauge high density trains which operate around the region centering on Stockholm Central Station as the main node interchange.
Commuter trains are providing residents in the northern and southern parts of the Stockholm county speedy trips throughout the county and to/from the city centre, and carry more than 281,000 boarding passengers every day. Many of the commuter rail stations have more daily passengers than many major Swedish cities railways stations.
Jernhusen AB is a Swedish Government owned company which owns, develops and manages approximately 100 properties along the Swedish railway. Jernhusen AB was formed in January 2001 as part of the break-up of Statens Järnvägar, the former national railway. It is still completely owned by the Swedish government.
Stockholm City and Stockholm Odenplan will be two new (redeveloped) City Line stations which will provide new travel opportunities and be important interchange centres. The travel time for the passengers changing between buses or metro and the commuter trains will be shorter due to the fact that the new stations are closer to other types of transport.
Stockholm Central Station is centrally located at Vasagatan district in Stockholm. Tracks 1-8 are located north of the terminal building, as well as the Arlanda Express terminal. Tracks 10-19 are located west of the terminal building. City Terminal (bus terminal) is located north of Central Station and is easily reached from the central hall’s northern part, or from the upper hall.
The Stockholm Central station is the busiest station on the Stockholm commuter rail, with about 53,000 boarding the trains and about as many disembarking every weekday (as of 2005). The commuter rail uses two platforms, 13 to 16.
The Citybanan (Stockholm City Line) is passing directly under T-Centralen metro station in central Stockholm, and Stockholm City station (scheduled to open in 2017) will be replacing Stockholm Central as the station for commuter train services. The new station will be providing direct access to all metro lines through two platforms with escalators, with interchange to Stockholm Central Station.
Approximately 250,000 people pass through the Stockholm Central Station daily, and a pedestrian tunnel leads to the hub of the underground railway, T-centralen, where three levels of the underground meet. Because it is the busiest station in Sweden, engineers use the heat generated by the thousands of visitors every day to help heat a nearby office building.
During the renovation of Stockholm Central Station, the main waiting hall has been utilised for commuters shopping opportunities and the former administrative building has been redeveloped for usage by innovative modern businesses. The lower floor of the central hall was reconstructed with shops and restaurants to facilitate large commuter flows.
As with previous articles, the vision of the project was mapped through a graphic displaying four main factors that we identified were relevant in all of the projects we analysed, which is shown below.
The structure of the involved entities is as displayed:
In the end, the expected results of the renovation of the Stockholm Central Station, and the construction of Stockholm City Station are more frequent services, faster changes between different types of transport, improved punctuality and shorter journey times. It is expected that the new Stockholm City commuter station will replace Stockholm Central in 2017.
In the next article we will be presenting the Denver Union Station redevelopment, a multimodal transit development located in lower downtown Denver, Colorado, USA.