Solitary Espoo drivers keep Länsiväylä motorway congested
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Solitary Espoo drivers heading for Helsinki keep the Länsiväylä urban motorway congested every morning. Very few of them are sharing the ride to work with a passenger.
Länsiväylä, leading west to Espoo from Helsinki, is one of the roads with the heaviest traffic in Finland.
On Friday, Helsingin Sanomat counted the number of cars with just one occupant during the morning rush-hour. In as many as 867 cars out of a thousand - in other words some some 87% - the driver was alone in the vehicle.
The cars were counted at Hanasaari, on the border between Helsinki and Espoo. Some 80 per cent of the drivers on Länsiväylä are Espoo residents, estimates Ari Puhakka from the Finnish Road Administration.
Following a commission from the Road Administration, a consultant is currently investigating whether the existing bus lanes could be reserved for car-pools, once public transport has gone underground in connection with the expansion of the Metro westwards to Espoo.
The Espoo citizens’ devotion to using their private cars instead of public transport services has been confirmed by a newly published study, according to which more than 40% of the inhabitants living in Espoo say that they go to their place of work or study alone and by car.
A car is used slightly more frequently in the northern suburbs than in the southern ones, where public transport services - at least in the shape of buses - are rather better.
The City of Espoo commissioned TNS Gallup, a local market research agency, to conduct a survey on the environtal attitudes and behaviour of Espoo citizens.
In Helsinki people use private cars less frequently than Espoo citizens do. In 2005, only 25 per cent of those Helsinki residents who had one car in the household drove alone to work.
Public transport services are used for commuting by 28 per cent of Espoo citizens, while one in ten uses a bicycle or goes on foot.
Half of Espoo men and one in three women drive to work alone.
At the end of last year, there were 0.43 private cars per inhabitant in Espoo. The corresponding figure in Helsinki was 0.37, and in Vantaa 0.45. According to Statistics Finland, the highest density of private cars was in the small municipality of Isokyrö near Vaasa, with 0.81 cars per inhabitant.
At the same time, Espoo residents are concerned about the state of the environment.
The respondents regarded the growth in traffic as the greatest local threat and climate change as the greatest global threat to the environment.
One in five of those drivers who commute with only the car radio for company say that they could transfer to public transport services, provided that better connections and cheaper tariffs were introduced.
However, some Espoo citizens say that they would never swap the car for public transport. Almost one in five drivers are absolute car users on their work-related trips, while more than one in three insist on using the car for recreation.
Only 7% of the respondents are car-poolers.
Länsiväylä, leading west to Espoo from Helsinki, is one of the roads with the heaviest traffic in Finland.
On Friday, Helsingin Sanomat counted the number of cars with just one occupant during the morning rush-hour. In as many as 867 cars out of a thousand - in other words some some 87% - the driver was alone in the vehicle.
The cars were counted at Hanasaari, on the border between Helsinki and Espoo. Some 80 per cent of the drivers on Länsiväylä are Espoo residents, estimates Ari Puhakka from the Finnish Road Administration.
Following a commission from the Road Administration, a consultant is currently investigating whether the existing bus lanes could be reserved for car-pools, once public transport has gone underground in connection with the expansion of the Metro westwards to Espoo.
The Espoo citizens’ devotion to using their private cars instead of public transport services has been confirmed by a newly published study, according to which more than 40% of the inhabitants living in Espoo say that they go to their place of work or study alone and by car.
A car is used slightly more frequently in the northern suburbs than in the southern ones, where public transport services - at least in the shape of buses - are rather better.
The City of Espoo commissioned TNS Gallup, a local market research agency, to conduct a survey on the environtal attitudes and behaviour of Espoo citizens.
In Helsinki people use private cars less frequently than Espoo citizens do. In 2005, only 25 per cent of those Helsinki residents who had one car in the household drove alone to work.
Public transport services are used for commuting by 28 per cent of Espoo citizens, while one in ten uses a bicycle or goes on foot.
Half of Espoo men and one in three women drive to work alone.
At the end of last year, there were 0.43 private cars per inhabitant in Espoo. The corresponding figure in Helsinki was 0.37, and in Vantaa 0.45. According to Statistics Finland, the highest density of private cars was in the small municipality of Isokyrö near Vaasa, with 0.81 cars per inhabitant.
At the same time, Espoo residents are concerned about the state of the environment.
The respondents regarded the growth in traffic as the greatest local threat and climate change as the greatest global threat to the environment.
One in five of those drivers who commute with only the car radio for company say that they could transfer to public transport services, provided that better connections and cheaper tariffs were introduced.
However, some Espoo citizens say that they would never swap the car for public transport. Almost one in five drivers are absolute car users on their work-related trips, while more than one in three insist on using the car for recreation.
Only 7% of the respondents are car-poolers.
Helsingin Sanomat