(North link) motorway in Stockholm Stockholm’s road network is shaped by its geographic location, spread across islands between
Lake Mälaren and the
Baltic Sea. Historically, waterways posed significant obstacles for land transport, with only a few key routes existing in the Middle Ages. Over the centuries, Stockholm's roads evolved, starting with
Göta landsväg, the only southern route until the 1670s, and expanding through major developments such as
Klas Fleming’s 17th-century street regulations and
Albert Lindhagen’s urban planning in the late 19th century. Today, Stockholm’s main traffic arteries include
Essingeleden, Södertäljevägen, and other radial routes connecting the city out to surrounding areas. Stockholm is at the junction of the
European routes E4,
E18 and
E20. A
C-shaped motorway ring road exists around the south, west and north of the City Centre. The northern section of the ring road, Norra Länken, opened for traffic in 2015. A final eastern section has been discussed at various points in the past and was initially discontinued in 2018, but in October of 2025 the
city of Stockholm, the
Stockholm regional authority, surrounding municipalities and the
Swedish government signed an agreement to work towards completing the ring road with an eastern section. While the political majority in the city initially opposed the project, a compromise was reached where the government in return granted continued funding for the expansion of the Stockholm metro and , a light rail project in the southern Stockholm suburbs, half of which was halted indefinitely in May of 2025 due to lack of funding by the Swedish state. A bypass motorway for traffic between Northern and Southern Sweden,
Förbifart Stockholm, is being built west of the city. The many islands and waterways make extensions of the road system both complicated and expensive, and new motorways are often built as systems of tunnels and bridges.
Congestion charge Stockholm has a
congestion pricing system, the Stockholm congestion tax, in use on a permanent basis since 1 August 2007, after having had a seven-month trial period in the first half of 2006. The City Centre is within the congestion tax zone. All the entrances and exits of this area have unmanned control points operating with
automatic number plate recognition. All vehicles entering or exiting the congestion tax-affected area, with a few exceptions, have to pay 10–20
SEK (1.09–2.18
EUR, 1.49–2.98
USD) depending on the time of day between 06:30 and 18:29. The maximum tax amount per vehicle per day is SEK 60 (EUR 6.53). Payment is done by various means within 14 days after one has passed one of the control points; one cannot pay at the control points. After the trial period was over, consultative referendums were held in Stockholm Municipality and several other municipalities in Stockholm County. The then-reigning government (
Persson Cabinet) stated that they would only take into consideration the results of the referendum in
Stockholm Municipality. The opposition parties (
Alliance for Sweden) stated that if they were to form a cabinet after the
general election—which was held the same day as the congestion tax referendums—they would take into consideration the referendums held in several of the other municipalities in
Stockholm County as well. The results of the referendums were that the Stockholm Municipality voted for the congestion tax, while the other municipalities voted against it. The opposition parties won the general election and a few days before they formed government (
Reinfeldt Cabinet) they announced that the congestion tax would be reintroduced in Stockholm, but that the revenue would go entirely to road construction in and around Stockholm. During the trial period and according to the agenda of the previous government, the revenue went entirely to public transport. ==Airport transport==