The release of the plans make a route via Heidelberg and Bulleen - first selected in 2008 by Labor but never progressed beyond media announcements - look increasingly likely because of its far more modest price tag of about $7 billion.

Premier Daniel Andrews on Monday released the options for the North East Link, a tollroad to link the Metropolitan Ring Road in Greensborough with either the Eastern Freeway or EastLink.

But the premier was quiet on how much the project would set the taxpayer back.

"It's a bit early for us to be talking about final costs," Mr Andrews said. "Any of these options will involve significant stretches of tunnel."

All options will link up with the Metropolitan Ring Road in Greensborough.

The alternatives released for the routes are:

Option A

Travels directly south through Heidelberg and Bulleen to the Eastern Freeway.

This option would be 11 kilometres in length and include a tunnel up to four kilometres long travelling under the Banyule Flats parkland and Heide gallery before surfacing to a full motorway on Bulleen Road.

It would carry up to 120,000 vehicles a day.

Potential cost: $7 billion

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Option B

Would follow the path of power transmission lines through Greensborough and Lower Plenty before linking to the Ringwood Bypass.

This 24-kilometre link would have tunnels for almost three quarters of its length, and carry up to 110,000 vehicles a day.

Potential cost: $19 billion

Option C

This would extend along an existing freeway reservation in Eltham North and pass through sensitive green wedge land in Eltham and Warrandyte.

The 26-kilometre route would have just over half its length in a tunnel, and carry as little as 50,000 cars a day and up to 110,000.

Trucks would find it hard to use this route because of the undulating terrain.

Potential cost: $18 billion.

Option D

Also extends along an existing freeway reservation in Eltham North but then forges a new 40-kilometre loop through sensitive environmental and heritage areas in Kangaroo Ground and the Bend of Islands, before meeting EastLink in Wantirna.

About 40 per cent of this route would be in tunnels, and as few as 45,000 vehicles a day would use it, and up to 90,000.

Potential cost: $23 billion

The most likely route to be selected by the government by the end of this year, Option A through Heidelberg and Bulleen, was already selected by then roads minister Tim Pallas in 2008 as the location for the road without any other options presented.

At the time, Mr Pallas - who is now treasurer - said building the tollroad would cost $6 billion.

Mr Pallas that year committed $15 million for planning the project, saying Labor was "taking action on transport".

The money was never spent.

"Detailed planning was not commenced," a VicRoads spokeswoman said on Monday.

"The funding was re-prioritised to other VicRoads projects."

The Premier on Monday declined to put a price tag on any of the new options presented.

Mr Andrews said he expected the project to cost "around $10 billion".

Heidelberg community group Resolve Rosanna Road wants to see something done to fix the badly congested road, which is choked with traffic from morning to night. It carries more than 45,000 cars a day.

Resolve Rosanna Road spokeswoman Natasha Reifschneider??? said the road was too dangerous to wait a decade to make safer. "We need solutions now," she said.

The government on Monday confirmed the new road would be tolled.

Ms Reifschneider said any tollroad that went through the area "has to be cheap enough to encourage use or Rosanna Road will continue to [be] a default freeway".

Figures presented at a press briefing by the North East Link Authority did not put a specific price tag on each route, but based on the authority's per-kilometre costs for tunnelling and above-ground freeway construction, the final option via Kangaroo Ground could cost between $18 billion and $23 billion.

Last week, government agencies briefed affected parties that the price tag for any of the tollroad options ranged from $6 billion to $16 billion.

Labor MPs from Melbourne's north whose seats cover the areas the four options run through - Anthony Carbines, Vicki Ward and Danielle Green - declined to say which corridor options they preferred, arguing the ultimate design should be up to the community.

Opposition leader Matthew Guy said the Coalition supported building the North East Link, and that option A appeared "the most sensible" route.

The Opposition would wait to see the final costings and environmental impacts of the four proposed routes before making a call, he said.

But Mr Guy said it was folly to build a road that would "funnel 100,000 vehicles a day onto the Eastern Freeway" without also building the East West Link.

"There is no use building a North East Link if you don't have an answer for the end of the Eastern Freeway - you'll just create a north-east car park," Mr Guy said.

Reviving the East West Link remains the Coalition's first priority, he said, although it would consider building it and the North East Link in tandem.

Opposition Roads spokesman Ryan Smith said Labor had condemned the eastern suburbs to stew in congestion by scrapping the East West Link, and its promise to build the North East Link in isolation could make things worse.

"It would be laughable if it wasn't so serious to think that, just three years ago, $1.2 billion was spent to scrap an important part of the road network, and just a year out from an election the premier is now asking Victorians to trust him to build this important piece," Ms Smith said.

The Andrews government's first major act upon taking power was to cancel the $6.8 billion East West Link project, which would have connected the end of the Eastern Freeway in Clifton Hill with CityLink in Parkville.

Cancelling the contract cost the state more than $1 billion.

More than 200 homes and business premises were compulsorily acquired to make way for the road, only to be put on the market again by the Andrews government.

Mr Guy would not say on Monday if the road would follow the same route, and require the same acquisitions as last time.

"You'll see that closer to the time, we're not going to go through that," he said.