【都市設計の極致】ヘルシンキ、1年間「交通事故死ゼロ」の快挙。その要因は？

フィンランドの首都ヘルシンキにおいて、この1年間で交通事故による死者が1人も発生しなかったことが報告されました。これは長年の都市計画、インフラ整備、そして徹底した速度制限の実施が実を結んだ結果と言えます。「技術とポリシーの力で死亡事故は防げる」ということを世界に証明した歴史的なニュースです。

Maybe they implemented the death penalty for texting while driving.

Meanwhile, pedestrian deaths are up in all the large coastal US cities that went full-on with the "Zero Vision" policies.

Seattle, Portland, SF enshittified their roads, limited the traffic speed, choked the streets with bike lanes, drank all the KoolAid.

Yet the deaths increased.

I can't say I'd be excited about 19 mph speed limits enforced by cameras, but I don't doubt it would work.

I'd love for my city to just focus on making other forms of transportation more appealing. More bus lanes, more (properly designed) bike lanes, etc.

It is sad how little U.S. voters seem to care about anyone but themselves. Near everything the Finns are dong could be done in here, but too many voices would complain about the cost, the paternalism, or how they might be slightly inconvenienced.

Those seem like harder challenges then the changes themselves.

Oslo has been doing this for years.

I wrote a blog post about my learnings there - "Engineering over enforcement":

Enforcement philosophy is rooted in the idea that behavior can be controlled by threatening punishments. Engineering philosophy believes that infrastructure can be designed to incentivize desired behavior. When Oslo sought to reduce pedestrian deaths, it turned to engineers.

[ . . .] Intersections are one small example where philosophies can diverge. But, as I learned in Oslo, engineers have a whole toolkit of methods to make cities safer. Bumping out a curb slows down turning speeds and protects pedestrians. Bike lanes can be safer by being raised above the street instead of relying on a painted barrier. Limiting how far cars can see ahead of them slows them down. Behavior can be designed rather than just enforced, and in aggregate these small changes can make a city safer.

https://www.contraption.co/engineering-over-enforcement/ (https://www.contraption.co/engineering-over-enforcement/)

Masses of speed cameras and a 30kph speed limit. We have this here in Sydney, but it's mixed 30/40/50 between every intersection and most of the major intersections have red light cameras as well as speed cameras. It's godammned utterly horrible to drive in. Most people I know, who when they were young never got a ticket, have now a few fines.

If you try and drive somewhere unfamiliar here you are pretty much guaranteed to get some sort of ticket as half the roads are one way, and you can't turn into the other half for random reasons.

Oh, most left hand red arrows in the city, start red when the main light goes green, and they have cameras on them too. You can literally see the camera lights flashing non stop when you walk along.

Add to this, zero rules for pedestrians, no one waits for the lights if they can see a break in the traffic.

whole city has been made incredibly painful to drive your own car, so no wonder. still not worth it, as public transport can only get you so far

The Helsinki bike infrastructure is even better than the Dutch one, if you spend time there, get a bike!

On the other side of the coin, a wide-scale introduction of 20mph speed limits in Wales has been generally unpopular.

This is despite a relatively small (but real) reduction in casualty figures that came with the change.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c93jvpjwdezo (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c93jvpjwdezo)