While Helsinki is among the smallest EU capitals, with a little under 690,000 residents, some 1.5 million people live in and commute throughout the metropolitan area.<\/p>\n
Roni Utriainen, a traffic engineer with the city\u2019s Urban Environment Division, told the Finnish press that the achievement was attributable to \u201ca lot of factors \u2026 but speed limits are one of the most important.\u201d<\/p>\n
Citing data that shows the risk of pedestrian fatality is cut in half by reducing a car\u2019s speed of impact from 40 to 30 kilometers per hour, city officials imposed the lower limit in most of Helsinki\u2019s residential areas<\/a> and city center in 2021.<\/p>\n The limits were enforced with 70 new speed cameras<\/a> and a policing strategy based on the national \u201cVision Zero<\/a>\u201d policy, with the goal of achieving zero traffic injuries or deaths. Data collected by Liikenneturva<\/a>, Finland\u2019s traffic safety entity, shows Helsinki\u2019s traffic fatalities have been declining ever since.<\/p>\n European model<\/p>\n Helsinki\u2019s authorities have spent the past five years trying to replicate the miracle they first achieved in 2019<\/a>, when no pedestrians or cyclists were killed in automotive collisions.<\/p>\n Utriainen stressed the mission\u2019s success is based on data-driven, long-term mobility policies and urban development strategies that have transformed the once car-centric capital. In many parts of the city, roads have been narrowed and trees have been planted with the deliberate goal of making drivers uncomfortable<\/a> \u2014 the rationale being that complex urban landscapes force drivers to move more cautiously through populated areas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While Helsinki is among the smallest EU capitals, with a little under 690,000 residents, some 1.5 million people…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[87],"tags":[1298,1299,2813,158,113,2432,1300,1301,1302],"class_list":["post-3933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-helsinki","tag-cars","tag-cities","tag-cycling","tag-finland","tag-helsinki","tag-infrastructure","tag-living-cities","tag-mobility","tag-urban-mobility"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}