Awwal 09, 1432 H/Feb 12, 2011, SPA -- One million people were unable to get to work or school because of a snowstorm that halted buses in the Stockholm area, officials said Saturday, according to UPI. Christer Wennerholm, chairman of SL, the public transit agency in the metropolitan area, said operators of bus companies may have been too ready to cancel service Friday, the news agency TT reported. He said some operators could be fined if an investigation determines they shut down unnecessarily. SL estimated about 1 million people were affected. By Saturday, most buses were running on normal schedules. The storm also led to delays in rail service. Opposition members of the county council were harshly critical of SL. "Stockholm cannot come grinding to a halt like this. People cannot get to work and school," Helene Hellmark Knutsson, a Social Democrat, told the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet on Saturday. Some critics suggested Sweden has not been spending enough on transportation infrastructure. But Infrastructure Minister Catharina Elmsater-Svard said not all weather can be overcome. "They could not cope with the weather. We cannot run at full capacity when the weather is so extreme," she said.
