Espoo strives to promote cycling – the City Board approved an updated cycling promotion programme

The cycling promotion programme compiles objectives and measures to promote cycling in Espoo. The main objective of the programme is to make cycling in Espoo attractive and safe for everyone. In addition, the aim is to increase the proportion of cycling by 0.25 per cent a year and increase the number of cyclists. Increased daily bicycle exercise also promotes the wellbeing of residents. The measures concern, for example, the construction and maintenance of cycling routes or how children and young people are encouraged to cycle in early childhood education and care and at school.

The promotion programme was created because Espoo wants to invest in promoting cycling. The goal is to improve cooperation and coordination within the city in the planning and implementation of cycle traffic and to determine initial key measures to achieve progress.
“The programme also supports the objectives set for transport in the Climate Neutral Espoo roadmap. The work will continue once new measures are identified after the previous ones have been implemented,” says Susanna Kaitanen, Traffic Planning Manager at the City Planning Department.

A number of separate measures for promoting cycling have been compiled under various sets of measures. For example, the quality of the cycling network will be improved on the most popular routes by means of various minor renovations and the removal of kerbstones that hinder cycling. A comprehensive guidance system for cycle traffic includes guidance on the main routes as well as checking the cycling route signs and priorities to give way on the entire cycling network.

The quality and monitoring of maintenance are also relevant. The preconditions for winter cycling will be improved by developing the quality control of winter maintenance. The goal of the cycling officer experiment is to hire a cycling officer for the summer who will observe minor shortcomings in the maintenance of cycling routes and more.

“Cycling tourism is a new addition to the promotion programme. There are extensive and well-maintained leisure-time cycling routes in Espoo, but productising them, making information available and communications, such as the website, still require development,” says Kaitanen.

Espoo will also develop the monitoring of and indicators for cycle traffic while updating the programme. These will provide information on the success of promotion in the coming years. The progress of the programme will be reported in the annual traffic review (liikennekatsaus) on the Espoo website.

In late 2024, the City Planning Department collected experiences on the smoothness of cycling and suggestions for improvements through a resident survey. According to the respondents, the biggest problems included the state of maintenance of cycling routes in the winter season, exceptional arrangements for cycling around construction sites and kerbs that make cycling more difficult. The respondents also considered combined pedestrian and bicycle routes and crossing arrangements designed on the terms of motorists to be transport solutions that make cycling more difficult and dangerous for the cyclist.

Data collected for the Traffic Barometer were also used in the updated programme. Some new questions on cycling had been included in the Traffic Barometer conducted at the end of 2024, with the update of the promotion programme in mind. Surveys will be used to monitor the programme.

Several city actors participated in updating the programme: the Urban Environment Sector, Visit Espoo, Sustainable Espoo, Sports and Exercise, Environmental Protection and the Growth and Learning Sector as well as the Premises Department. Consulting company WSP Finland was also involved.