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Slussen

I’m staying on the island of Södermalm just south of Stockholm’s old city. At the north end of the island, right by the bridges to the old city, is Slussen a fairly interesting entry in the roadway interchange genre.

Its little spirals of road are noteworthy both for being somewhat tighter and smaller than you normally see, but also for what they tucked under and inside the interchange, namely a Metro station (Red and Green lines) plus a light rail stop, a stopping point for many buses, and even a ferry depot.

I think it’s about as good a job as you can do of this sort of thing and still you’re left with the fact that this kind of structure really has no place in a city. You should just do regular roads and a normal grid. This interchange is particularly odd since Stockholm is actually blessed with a lack of misguided urban freeway projects in its central core (it’s a different story on the outskirts) so it’s hard to see why this was even felt to be necessary.

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