Stockholm public transport tickets could get more expensive next year
Stockholm public transport commuters may want to start budgeting for a pricier monthly travel card next year, as a bid is being floated to raise the price to almost 1,000 kronor.
According to a budget proposal put forward by the public transport administration in Stockholm, the price of a monthly SL card should be raised by three percent next year to 999 kronor.
The monthly card currently costs 970 kronor.
The price hike is meant to help Stockholm public transport cope with an urgent cash flow problem. There’s currently a gap of around 1.7 billion kronor in the administration’s coffers, writes the DN daily.
Part of the reason behind its struggling economy is that Stockholmers’ use of public transport hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels. Travel in May stood at around 80 percent of the levels seen in 2019.
Raising the price to 999 kronor would bring in around 180 million kronor, according to the Stockholm public transport administration’s estimates, so it’s nowhere near enough.
DN reports that the price would in theory really need to be raised by 30 percent, to 1,270 kronor, to plug the entire deficit gap, but the transport administration warns against too significant an increase, which could have the opposite effect if fewer people choose to use public transport due to the high costs.
The proposal will form part of budget negotiations this autumn, and the ruling centre-left coalition in Stockholm has not yet made a decision on whether or not it will support raising ticket prices.
So it’s not yet clear whether or not the price hike will actually go ahead.
That said, Stockholmers have had to get used to higher ticket prices in the past few years. In 2011 the cost of a monthly SL card was 790 kronor and five years ago it was 860 kronor.
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According to a budget proposal put forward by the public transport administration in Stockholm, the price of a monthly SL card should be raised by three percent next year to 999 kronor.
The monthly card currently costs 970 kronor.
The price hike is meant to help Stockholm public transport cope with an urgent cash flow problem. There’s currently a gap of around 1.7 billion kronor in the administration’s coffers, writes the DN daily.
Part of the reason behind its struggling economy is that Stockholmers’ use of public transport hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels. Travel in May stood at around 80 percent of the levels seen in 2019.
Raising the price to 999 kronor would bring in around 180 million kronor, according to the Stockholm public transport administration’s estimates, so it’s nowhere near enough.
DN reports that the price would in theory really need to be raised by 30 percent, to 1,270 kronor, to plug the entire deficit gap, but the transport administration warns against too significant an increase, which could have the opposite effect if fewer people choose to use public transport due to the high costs.
The proposal will form part of budget negotiations this autumn, and the ruling centre-left coalition in Stockholm has not yet made a decision on whether or not it will support raising ticket prices.
So it’s not yet clear whether or not the price hike will actually go ahead.
That said, Stockholmers have had to get used to higher ticket prices in the past few years. In 2011 the cost of a monthly SL card was 790 kronor and five years ago it was 860 kronor.
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