Vaasa opens its first village street in Old Vaasa

Vaasa has opened its first village street on Postikatu in the Old Vaasa residential area, where cars share a central lane and pedestrians and cyclists use wide shoulders on either side. The street opened about a month ago, Yle reports.

The arrangement is intended to improve safety and calm traffic. The speed limit is 30 kilometres per hour, and drivers meeting oncoming traffic must give way partly onto the shoulders.

City project engineer Samuli Huusko said Postikatu needed renovation and was quiet enough not to serve as a through road. The street was also too narrow to add separate walking and cycling paths, so the city chose the village street design. Huusko said the work was relatively inexpensive because it used the existing road width.

Some residents are concerned that drivers are not keeping to the speed limit. Gerd Holm said the design would work if drivers travelled at 30 kilometres per hour, but that few did. Residents are also worried about meeting traffic on the street’s bends. Pekka Mäkynen said he had already had to move onto a shoulder several times when an oncoming car did not make room.

Oliver Sjölund, who often uses the street with his young children, said time would show how well the arrangement works. He is also concerned about a possible increase in traffic if Microsoft begins building a data centre and more trucks use the road.

There are about 40 village streets in Finland. Piritta Paavola-Vainio, a transport systems specialist at the Southwest Finland Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment, said the design takes time for road users to learn, but there had been no substantial feedback that village streets do not work. She said there had been one injury crash on village streets in Finland over the past eight years.

Village streets are intended for places where there is a genuine need for walking and cycling but not enough room for separate paths. The general guideline is that they should be built in village-like settings with no more than about 1,000 vehicles per day. Lighting is still due to be installed on Postikatu, but deliveries have been delayed.