Essingeleden
Essingeleden is an urban motorway in Stockholm , it is part of the European Routes 4 / 20 and in 1966 opened to traffic. Essingeleden is named after the two Mälarensee islands , Lilla Essingen and Stora Essingen , which are crossed by this city motorway.
history
The 1958 traffic overview plan for Stockholm provided for a motorway ring around the city, which should consist of the following parts: Essingeleden (in the west), Norra Länken , Österleden and Södra Länken . Only Essingeleden (finished 1966) and Södra Länken (finished 2004) exist of this ring . Norra länken is currently (2008) under construction and should be inaugurated in 2015, while the realization of the Österleden , which would lead through the national city park , is still being discussed.
description
Essingeleden was built between 1962 and 1966 and was Sweden's largest road construction project at the time. The approximately six kilometer long section from Västberga in the south to Solna in the north cost 240 million crowns and includes, among other things, three large bridges, several viaducts and a tunnel. During the construction work, Sweden decided to introduce right-hand traffic, which meant that some junctions had to be rebuilt. On August 21, 1966, therefore, only the western carriageway was officially opened by Prime Minister Tage Erlander and it was not until September 1967 that all carriageways on the motorway were opened to traffic.
Essingeleden today
Essingeleden is Sweden's busiest road link. At the beginning of 2000, an average of 120,000 vehicles per day passed through here in both directions and after expanding to four lanes in each direction, the number of vehicles in 2007 was 150,000. This exceeds the capacity and leads to traffic jams at peak times. In order to relieve the Essingeleden, a western bypass highway has long been discussed, which should lead traffic mainly in tunnels (17 of a total of 21 kilometers) under the island of Ekerö past the city. Construction of this so-called “Stockholm pass-by ” (Förbifart Stockholm) began in 2014; it should not be ready until 2022 at the earliest and, according to calculations from 2006, will cost around 2.7 billion euros.
Web links
Coordinates: 59 ° 20 ′ 41.9 ″ N , 18 ° 0 ′ 40.4 ″ E