We met Martti Tulenheimo, cycling
activist. Martti presented himself not as anti-car, but pro-transport-choice.
In his remarks, Martti underlined that cycling was a dominant mode of transport
in the European cities from the 1930s until the end of WWII. Then the car
domination period started, interrupted in some countries by the Oil Crisis of
1973. Helsinki only recently started to catch up on cycling. It has now 7 per
cent of modal share. The city signed the Brussels Charter and committed itself
to increase cycling to 15 per cent until 2020.
Then,
during a short ride we experienced the current state of cycling infrastructure
in Helsinki. Although there are cycling lanes, they vary in quality
dramatically and are often too narrow to carry two-way traffic. They are mostly
created atthe expense of space for pedestrians, putting pedestrians and
cyclists into conflict. Later the day Mr Sauri explained that due to narrow
streets within the city centre further improvement of cycling lanes are
possible only by confining other transport modes. However we would like to
point out that considerable improvement could be gained by renovation of the
pavement on cycling lanes and adaptation of the street intersections to
increase both comfort and safety of the ride.
We also
met Pekka Sauri, now serving the send seven-year long-term as the city's vice-mayor responsible for transport. According to him the municipality invests heavily in public transport and plans to spend 2.4 billion euro during next 10
years to develop and improve the transport infrastructure. Mr Sauri noted that
Helsinki has managed to stop the decline of the public transport’s share in
daily journeys taken, which is now about 40 per cent. The city tries to make
public transport acceptable for people from all social classes, including all
range of income classes. It seems to work, as the richest man in Finland has
been seen using the public transport. At the same time, the system is
considerably subsidised (the ticket revenues constitute 46% of the budget,
advertising - 3% and subsidies 51%). The city uses tenders to outsource
operation of bus routes and to maintain fair competition among bus operators.
While planning new districts, the city includes the public transport network
and tries to develop it before the construction of houses takes place.
The
vice-mayor hopes, that t
he development of cycling roads will make the bike as
attractive alternative for current car users, as it is an individual mode of
transport and can be interchanged in most situations. The mayor feels that the
key to increase commuting by bike is to provide safe bicycle parking
facilities, which should be placed indoors for security reasons.
