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.
Roni Utriainen, a traffic engineer with the city’s Urban Environment Division, told the Finnish press that the achievement was attributable to “a lot of factors … but speed limits are one of the most important.”
Citing data that shows the risk of pedestrian fatality is cut in half by reducing a car’s speed of impact from 40 to 30 kilometers per hour, city officials imposed the lower limit in most of Helsinki’s residential areas and city center in 2021.
The limits were enforced with 70 new speed cameras and a policing strategy based on the national “Vision Zero” policy, with the goal of achieving zero traffic injuries or deaths. Data collected by Liikenneturva, Finland’s traffic safety entity, shows Helsinki’s traffic fatalities have been declining ever since.
European model
Helsinki’s authorities have spent the past five years trying to replicate the miracle they first achieved in 2019, when no pedestrians or cyclists were killed in automotive collisions.
Utriainen stressed the mission’s 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 — the rationale being that complex urban landscapes force drivers to move more cautiously through populated areas.