Essingeleden is a

motorway A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms ...

that goes from

Solna Solna Municipality ( sv, Solna kommun or , ) is a municipality in Stockholm County in Sweden, located just north of Stockholm City Centre. Its seat is located in the town of Solna, which is a part of the Stockholm urban area. Solna is one of the ...

Stockholm Stockholm () is the capital and largest city of Sweden as well as the largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.6 million in the urban area, and 2.4 million in the metropo ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...

, crossing the westmost parts of central Stockholm, by going over Kungsholmen,

Lilla Essingen Lilla Essingen is a small island in central Stockholm, Sweden. It is located on Lake Mälaren next to the larger neighbouring island of Stora Essingen. Both Essingen Islands (''Essingeöarna'') are mainly residential areas, the smaller densely ...

, and

Stora Essingen Stora Essingen is an island and a district in the Kungsholmen borough in Stockholm, Sweden. It is located adjacent to Lilla Essingen on Lake Mälaren. Both Essingen Islands are mainly residential areas. Stora Essingen is scattered with private ...

. Essingeleden has three bridges –

Fredhällsbron Fredhällsbron ( sv, The Fredhäll Bridge) is a bridge in central Stockholm, Sweden. It connects the island Lilla Essingen to Fredhäll, a district on the island Kungsholmen, and, forming a section of the Essingeleden motorway, connects the Lill ...

(270 m),

Essingebron Essingebron ( Swedish: "The Essinge Bridge") are two parallel bridges in central Stockholm, Sweden, inaugurated August 21, 1966, and September 3, 1967. Forming a section of the Essingeleden motorway they connect the two islands Stora Essingen and ...

(470 m), and

Gröndalsbron Gröndalsbron ( sv, The Gröndal bridge) are two bridges in central Stockholm, Sweden, connecting the island Stora Essingen to the southern mainland district Gröndal. The older bridge, inaugurated in 1967, forms a 460-metre section of the Essing ...

(460 m) – and one tunnel, Fredhällstunneln (210 m), which is one of the busiest tunnels in Europe. The road is part of

European route The international E-road network is a numbering system for roads in Europe developed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). The network is numbered from E1 up and its roads cross national borders. It also reaches Centr ...

E4 and E20, and is the busiest road in Sweden, with about 150,000 vehicles per day. In August 2007 this has increased to 170,000 cars per day, because Essingeleden was then the only road through central Stockholm exempt from the

Stockholm congestion tax The Stockholm congestion tax ( sv, Trängselskatt i Stockholm), also referred to as the Stockholm congestion charge, is a congestion pricing system implemented as a tax levied on most vehicles entering and exiting central Stockholm, Sweden. The ...

, and because of repairs of the main road through the inner city. This has caused big traffic jams on Essingeleden and

Södra länken Södra länken (''The southern link''), designated as national road 75 ( sv, Riksväg 75), is a motorway in Sweden connecting Essingeleden ( E4, E20), Stockholm with Värmdöleden (county road 222), Nacka. Södra länken is in length, of whic ...

. Since 1 January 2016, Essingeleden has been subject to the congestion tax.

History

The road was inaugurated on 21 August 1966 by

Tage Erlander Tage Fritjof Erlander (; 13 June 1901 – 21 June 1985) was a Swedish politician who served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1946 to 1969. He was the leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party and led the government for an uninterrupted tenu ...

with two temporary lanes in each direction on the western half of the road, as Sweden was about to switch over to right-hand sided traffic the next year. The road was fully operational in September 1967 after Sweden had switched over to right-hand side traffic, and Essingeleden became the first six-lane motorway in Sweden. During the 1990s, the road was repainted from six lanes to eight lanes to increase the capacity.

Plans

Essingeleden has on several occasions been included in plans to create a ring road around Stockholm, but the ring road is only very slowly being built. Not much happened 1966–2000, but then the Southern Link (opened 2004) and the Northern Link (opened 2015) were built. A new parallel motorway is under construction further west, "

Förbifart Stockholm Förbifart Stockholm (''Stockholm Bypass'') is a series of underground motorway tunnels currently under construction between the Kungens Kurva interchange in the south of Stockholm and the Häggvik interchange north of Stockholm. Most of this byp ...

". It will have several tunnels and will be very expensive, around 25 billion SEK. The

(gross tax amount 800 MSEK/year) is supposed to be used for this and other road and public transit projects in Stockholm. The construction started in 2014 after several years of debating and planning.

Gallery

Fredhällsbron 1964b.jpg, Fredhäll bridge in 1964 after a collapse Fredhällstunneln 1965.jpg, Fredhäll tunnel, 1965 Essingeleden 1966a.jpg, Fredhäll tunnel in 1966, shortly after opening. Notice that only one roadway is used Essingeleden 1967 Dagen H.jpg, Essingeleden on the 3rd of September 1967 Hornsbergs strand Essingeleden 1968.jpg, Construction underway at Kungsholmen in 1968

References

External links

{{coord, 59, 20, 42, N, 18, 00, 40, E, source:kolossus-svwiki, display=title Bridges in Stockholm Transport in Stockholm Motorways in Sweden

History

Plans

Gallery

See also

References

External links