Drammen is located in the south of the country, in the metropolitan area (and is sometimes even considered a sleeping area in Oslo, although it is located 40 km from it), but is also the center of the adjacent area. For a long time it was a depressed city, sharing the fate of many industrial centers in Europe. From the 14th century. through its port they began to export timber, and in the 19th century. on the basis of this specialization, woodworking and pulp and paper mills, metallurgical plants and shipyards appeared in Drammen. But in the 1960s and 1970s, these enterprises gradually closed, leaving behind an industrial zone in the very center of the city, on the banks of the extremely polluted Drammenelva River, at the mouth of which Drammen is located.
Not surprisingly, the city had a reputation for being unpleasant at the time, exacerbated by the busy national highways passing through it. The environmental situation there was so dire that in the 1980s the Ministry of the Environment called for urgent action. By 1995, the wastewater problem had been completely resolved, and today you can even swim and fish in Drammenelva. Later, in 2000-2010, highways were removed from the center, placed in tunnels in the surrounding hills. But the main problem remained the banks built up with industrial structures, and on the left of them the river was also cut off from the city by a highway.
Therefore, it was there, in parallel with the transformation of this highway into an ordinary street, on the embankments near the water itself, a new public space was created - Elvepark: partly green, partly paved, complemented by a cafe and other infrastructure facilities. In addition, the buildings on the left bank, where the main square of Bragernes-Torg is located (overlooking the river and also underwent reconstruction: concerts are held here in summer, an ice rink is flooded in winter) and the main public buildings (mostly from the end of the 19th century), were converted in the 2000s, into a lively area with a developed infrastructure (the first floors of houses are occupied by cafes and shops, some streets have been turned into passages).
The right bank, which was before the 19th century. the independent settlement of Strömsø, presented a more significant problem: there were more industrial buildings, united in the Grönland industrial zone. Most of them could be demolished and replaced with housing as part of the Naturbania concept: it was intended to maintain compact urban development (as opposed to the suburbs that appeared in the 60s and 80s), which made it possible to quickly get from the city center to the wooded hills surrounding Drammen.
Thus, in the 2000s, residential buildings appeared on the site of workshops near the water, a promenade was arranged along the coast. But after the departure of heavy industry, it was still impossible to fully rely on tourism (which, however, today provides a significant part of the city's income: this is facilitated by both picturesque surroundings and festivals, concerts, sports events). Therefore, it was decided to develop the "intellectual" component: on the site of the Union paper mill, the historical buildings of which were preserved, the Papirbredden complex was built for Drammen College (2006, LPO arkitekter bureau and others), where the city and regional libraries are also located. Nearby, on the territory of the new Union Brygge district (as the former industrial zone began to be called), a science park, a Union Scene cultural center in a former factory workshop (where concerts are held and the municipality's cultural department works), a hostel for students, and a hotel appeared.
Union Brygge linked the Ypsilon pedestrian and cyclist bridge to the opposite bank (2007, Arne Eggen Architects). However, the development of Strömsø will continue, and partly as part of the national Future built program, which implements exemplary urban development projects with minimal CO2 emissions. So, in the coming years, Papirbredden 2 should appear, but for now the unaffected part of the area will undergo a "green" reconstruction according to the Look to Strømsø plan; a school and a kindergarten have already been built in Drammen according to the passive house ecological standard.
No less important achievements of the city authorities and their most ambitious plans lie in the field of the transport system. Private vehicles are responsible for most of the environmental pollution, not to mention other annoyances caused by the busy traffic in the city, from the "crashing" of areas by highways to car-laden roadsides and traffic jams. Although the highways have been removed from the center, traffic there remains quite busy: residents of the outskirts or neighboring cities working in the center, those who came to Drammen on business, citizens working in Oslo, etc., move by cars.
Therefore, within the framework of the national strategy aimed at preserving the environment, it was decided to minimize traffic flows. At the same time, the municipality considered it very important to act not alone, but in cooperation with other cities of the Buskerud region, because if you do not pay attention to each other's actions, you can easily nullify them (for example, in Drammen they refused to build a shopping center attracting vehicles the outskirts, but in the neighboring city they nevertheless erected it). Therefore, a general strategy was developed that, if successfully implemented, will be able to attract subsidies from the Norwegian government. It involves solving transport problems without building new roads. Having united all the settlements of the region into the conditional Buskerud City, 5 main centers were allocated in it (including Drammen), the rest were assigned the 2nd or 3rd level of importance. All cities will be connected by an active bus service (a new bus station was built in Drammen in this regard), and the main ones - by additional express lines. Also, convenient and attractive bicycle paths will be laid between them, between neighboring settlements and within cities - new bicycle and pedestrian paths; there are intercept parking lots at all railway stations where trains leave for Oslo; the same parking lots are planned to be created for those heading to 5 "regional centers".
But not all measures will be exclusively encouraging: along with the development of public and "green" transport, it is planned to apply various prohibitive measures against private vehicles, for example, the widespread use of toll roads (which will finance the rest of the transformations). In Drammen itself, for example, there are significant restrictions (in the form of high prices) on parking in the areas surrounding its center, so it is more profitable for people working there to use a bicycle or public transport.
During the construction of new facilities, much attention is paid to bridges in the city, which is natural, given its riverside location. During the withdrawal of the highway outside the city, the bridge on the border of the Drammenelva estuary and the fjord (2007), carrying the European highway E18 (it connects the UK and St. Petersburg through Scandinavia), was reconstructed, and the area below it on the coast was turned into a public space. The main Drammen Bridge, which connects the main squares on both banks, is now served by cars and buses, and there are paths for pedestrians and cyclists along its edges, but this will soon change. Behind the Ypsilon Bridge, located further west and further from the bay, a road bridge is currently being built, which will be entirely given to private vehicles, and mostly only buses, pedestrians and bicycles will be left.
The city authorities also thought about changing the image of Drammen in accordance with the transformation of his real appearance. However, it seems that so far this is the only area in which they are not as successful as they would like: according to the observations of the author of the article, Norwegians prefer to joke about the word play associated with the name of the city (dram means "a sip of alcohol") than to praise it a truly wonderful transformation from a dull industrial area to a clean, beautiful and vibrant city.
