Stockholms trafikledsutbyggnad : Förändrade förutsättningar för beslut och implementering 1960-1975

Sammanfattning: This dissertation deals with the functioning of and chances in the planning, decision- making and implementation processes concerning investments in main arterial roads in Stockholm, Sweden, during the post-World war II era, but with emphasis on the period between 1960 and 1975.In the late 1950's and early 1960's, traffic route plans presented a network of high-capacity traffic routes of highway class, including a ring of arterial roads around the inner city of Stockholm. From around 1970, however, the ambitious planning of the 1960's was to a large extent abandoned, due to a shortage of funding and to changes in public opinion. Case studies carried out within the dissertation give further evidence to this argument. The first case studied, "Essingeleden" was constructed in the years 1960-1966 and was implemented according to plans. Decision-making was informal and efficient, involving a very limited number of actors (e.g. City Commissioners and leading officials). By the end of the 1960's and early 1970's, the time of implementation of the other case projects, "Huvudstaleden" and the extension of "Essingeleden" to the north, it was harder to get government funding and public opinion was more hostile to automobile traffic and roads close to neighbourhoods. There was also a conflict between Stockholm and the town of Solna, which was supposed to contain the roads without getting much benefit from them.It is argued that the changes in public opinion around 1970 led to a legitimacy crisis for the prevailing decision-making structure. In its place, a complexity of interests arose that has to be considered in all attempts to implement large traffic projects.