Ye i was thinking the same. As a fin my self i was ofcourse expecting terrible pronounciation but i was definetly surprised. Some words were pretty much perfect
The Espoo extension of Helsinki's metro being heavily delayed and over budget must've taught some good lessons for both cities that this project managed to be early and under budget.
However they cut corners in planning and building it by building cheaper solutions in crossings and cutting "excess" traffic signs and stuff. Which led to crashing with cars and bicycles weekly at the start until some new marking and planning was made in road crossings. "under budget" cheap and "in time" simple led to unsafe in motion.
@@msg5359 Not just that, new lining in engineering phase and making cheaper planning solutions than originally planned. So of course it's under budget when you make cheaper solutions than planned. Road signs being the climax in saving.
@@mikkorenvall428 Why are you lying on the internet? :D If there had been cost savings, they were most likely in geotechnical solutions and/or how land masses were transported and used.
@@hahhuli Expecially landmasses as some overpasses were changed to level crossings and level crossings were produced differently to make cheaper -> unsafe/dangerous.
You know this something I'd like to show Tallinn Officials just because they did all that in the same period of time as we are spending on a 2km line to the port.., and our extension will probably also take longer and be more expensive.
@@yeetyboe7099 owning a car is much more expensive than not owning one. also most of the problems of having a lot of cars aren't related to the type of motor but instead how inefficient they are at moving a lot of people, especially in a city
Another nice little detail to point out is that the Eastern part of the light rail runs along the same route as one of the old cargo and freight rail lines, which ran through Viikki and down to Herttoniemi. Around 30-40 years ago and further back in history, Helsinki had several industrial and commercial seaports along its coastline, and each one of them had their own assigned railway stations. Now that all that has been centralized to Vuosaari Harbor, the decades old large rail network, scattered around the city, was gradually decommissioned and eventually scrapped. But now, this one old route has been, in a sense, resurrected to rail traffic.
Another future proofing thing is that the line has been built to 2650 mm loading gauge even though the vehicles are only 2400 mm wide, again for interoperability. This is not hypothetical, with extensions already under construction, the same vehicles will operate also in the old parts of the network.
@@jakob7116 The main thing why the vehicles look so small is also that the curve radius is larger, like 300 m for 50 km/h and the minimum is 25 m for 15 km/h. Which is ludicrous considering there are 15 m curves in the old network, with wich Artic is compatible.
The line has mostly been running okay, but there have been some problems as well. Sometimes there are crashes or other mishaps that can totally immobilize the line for a while. There is an infamous roundabout in Viikki, where cars have stranded on the track ballast of the line. The tram track crosses the road right before cars turn right on the roundabout, so some drivers confuse the tram track for the road. They then turn right before they should and end up on the tram tracks instead, which quickly introduces track ballast where the cars get stuck. I seem to be pretty unlucky whenever taking the line. I've had to cut my trip short at least a few times and take an alternative route.
@@realdronthego I might be misremembering (because I haven't conciously paid attention to it while commuting through viikki), but I think they have added bollards to this specific spot to not confuse drivers anymore.
I've heard multiple people say this, so it's definitely not just bad luck but a common occurrence. During the winter there were also days where the tram wouldn't run at all because of a snowstorm, so I couldn't get to school, and had to find some alternative route. I wouldn't say that's "incredibly well executed".
Got to see the whole length of the line back in march, felt very efficient and seamless, I have to return to try out the new cycling infrastructure built along most of the line though. One weird thing is the stop in Leppävaara being a bit further away from the actual commuter rail station and instead "in" the Sello shopping centre, but that has its own positives as well
There are two options to get to the commuter trains from the tram stop. One being through the shopping mall to the underpass and one from the outdoors straight to the A-line which is very close walking distance away. A-line serves between Leppävaara and Central railway station, stopping in all stops between them and I think is the most crowded line commuting from leppävaara. One thing to take in consideration also is that Leppävaara right now is being replanned. The northern and western parts are going to develope a lot in the future including small extension to the shopping mall 'Sello' which ends forming a bridge over the road (Turuntie) and train lines to northern Leppävaara. So in the future there is the current underpass but also a bridge over. The new plan is still in designing and planning phase and might take some time but exciting times for us living near Leppävaara.
@@intervrt The comment with a link seemed to have gotten deleted or is still being modarated and will appear later. if you search "leppävaara 2024 ideakilpailu" in google the first link should take you to the site. By default the website opens in finnish but there is language options for english too.
The light rail opened on 21st of October, making the bus route 550 terminate at Keilaniemi metro station instead of its original terminus. In the end of the year, bus routes 550 was retired because most of the passengers were using the light rail. Also the light rail had disruptions including: Due to fire on the way, the light rail terminates at Oulunkylä train station. Meaning the bus route 15X will replace the service Also, before it went on service, one of the trams derailed. Most of the stops are interchange for bus services
Great video, but one thing: HSL (Helsingin Seudun Liikenne/Helsinki's Region's Transportation) says one its page, that the tram run with intervals of 8 minutes, and on busy times just 6 minutes.
As far as I know, that will only come gradually once more trams are being delivered. When I was filming for this video it was even once every 12 minutes, as it was on a holiday.
@@realdronthego It's already 8 minutes since march during peak times. However currently because of summer timetable it's just 10 minutes, but that'll be normal for any summer (as summer is always low traffic). But yeah summers, and holidays are not the typical case. And yeah, as they go back to winter timetable in August it'll be 6 minute traffic already!
This line was actually designed as a light rail line in the 1990's, but lack of commitment to development and auto-centric mindset delayed it and a trunk bus line was built as a stopgap measure. So Jokeri wasn't really designed as an answer to congestion per say. Of course now that the initial stretch has been converted, it has elevated the capacity potential in the corridor.
Thank you! Even though this video doesn't go very deep with details, it's a good one. My opinion of the project is very positive, although, there is one "major" problem, that being cranking noise. It can get quite disturbing at times. Thankfully, solutions to this problems are being looked into and I expect the problem to be resolved in the near future. The reason why I consider cranking noise from tram line 15 to be a problem, is because Helsinki city center tram track do not make the same kind of noise, even though tracks there are a complete mess with lots and lots of turns and so on... Then again, I should probably go through each and every tram line in Helsinki in full a couple times just to be sure I'm on the right track.
As tokyo citizen I am seriously enviou to new LRT project. Metro is high capacity but sight from window is boring and newly constructed ones is so deep that it waste 5 mimutes. LRT is very human sized solution especially when comparing with newly constructed deep metro. Oedo line is too deep...
I wish Tokyo would reintroduce a tram / light rail system. Like Paris light rail could form many connecting lines a little further out. And closer to the center (within and close to the Yamanote line) tram could form a great local transport leaving metro for longer journeys and commuting. Though I have to say. Having used Tokyos public transit system quite a lot it is already very impressive. It is not perfect and there is always room for improvement but it has never failed to get me where I needed to go. There are many cities who could learn a lot from studying Tokyos transit and there are some that Tokyo could learn from
BTW: professors and scientists at Otaniemi had been furiously against this project... those trams interfere a lot with the electron microscopes used at Otaniemi University laboratories... all the ground vibrations caused by track and trams...
Beautiful project but i am not sure if it is really a light rail project. Because of those sharp turns i would say it is a tram like system. It seems more like a tram with extend rights of way. Light rail woulf mostly be grade seperated and with high capacity using Multiple units.
Mmm… maybe in other places they would be making this differentation more strictly. Although this line’s stop spacing, rights of way and overall comfort level clearly distinguishes it from regular trams. Grade-separation mostly only takes place on busy intersections or when it will get metro-like features.
Since English isn't an official language in Finland, neither of those English expressions are really authentic right terms. 😊 Snabbspårvägslinje (Swedish) and pikaraitiotie (Finnish ) are the more official terminology. pikaraitiotie in Finnish: pika - fast raitiotie - tramway
I think "incredibly well executed" is a bit of an overstatement from someone who has actually used it and lives close by. It has some good things of course but here are some negatives: 1. There have been many times that the whole line is just not moving because of a big snow storm, even though it's only been running for half a year or something so far, so I expect only more outages to come. 2. The tracks/wheels already squeak a lot when going into turns and this causes unpleasant noise to neighborhoods that it passes through. 3. The time it took me to get to university has doubled compared to taking the 550 bus. Part of this is because they cancelled line 550 completely and the tram line is a 10 min walk away, but even with the same walk it would still be slower because it stops at every stop 800m apart (on average) and never goes that fast. The benefit of not being stuck in traffic is completely wasted because you're stuck at stations. In my opinion they should've kept the buses running but at less frequent intervals, because the trams have already been overcrowded as well.
It just has way too many stops. Should operate more like a metro or train. Now its pretty much useless going the whole way and only good for shortest of hops.
I've been trying to find that, but I can only find that in recent years, some other public transport projects in Finland have also finished below budget. Tampere's tram by 34 million, Jokeri/Line 15 by 6 million, and Länsimetro phase 2 by 100 million euros. Länsimetro phase 1, however, went over one billion euros over budget
Well, it might move a lot of people, but not so sure how well it is executed. It didn't take the existing previously working car traffic to account that well and now causes delays and jams due to poorly timed traffic lights.
.. although out-of-context it of course means the area as a whole, like snägäri, rapala, bus stops and close proximity hood with it's typical inhabitats such as kalja-kake & friends.
One of the trams crashed into a car 2 and a half months ago in Pitäjänmäki and I was supposed to travel to school on that same tram, but I missed it by about 3 minutes because I forgot to take my laptop charger and had to return to get it. (No one was seriously hurt in the accident)
I life in walking distance to one of its stations and I absolutely support it, but it is way too slow! It is slower than the bus it replaces. Due to its super tight turns and frequent stops it is excruciatingly slow. It sadly cannot compete on speed with cars. Its so frustrating to sit in the light rail seeing cars go by at twice the speed.
It can be good if you don't live nearby and have to listen to the loud noise caused by the trolley About news from Helsinki: 17.7.2024 "The mystery that plagues Pikaratika cannot be solved even with an axe Kaupunkiliikenne Oy has still not been able to find out the root causes of the light rail noise problem. The problem that became a topic of conversation in the spring has been tried to be solved in the past by greasing the rails. Residents along the route have described the shrill noise as tormenting."
I seriously don't know what was wrong with the buses that they had to spend truck loads of money on this tram line that is NOT better than the busline was. I don't know where the information for this video is coming from, but it just sounds like city propaganda. The real reality is not as rosy as presented here.
Did you ever use the old bus 550? I used to ride it every day and it definitely had problems. During rush hour the buses were often completely full and never on time. They would get stuck in traffic and behind each other so instead of evenly spaced busea you might wait 15 minutes before you see a conga line of three buses. The trams have over double the capacity with the same time interval, and they save on fuel costs compared compared to diesel buses. Also the ride is much smoother.
This is not a success! There's many crossings with other traffic, even without traffic lights. And several collisions have occurred. There should be no crossings at all.
I live in Helsinki, the project was poorly implemented, both final stops are far from the metro, the route has several sharp turns where the tram makes a terrible creaking noise, which disturbs residents of houses near the tram tracks, in winter the tram never follows the schedule👎👎👎
I live on the route and it's the first I heard about its poor implementation. I've gone to Otaniemi many times and wasn't aware of how inconvenienced I was being. I used to live on the 3 tram line, so if there's creaking noises, I'm well used to it I guess.
i havent seen keilaniemi's final stop, but itäkeskus final stop is about 40-50 steps off from metro... i hope you start cardio soon, if that is "far from metro"
Keilaniemi stop indeed is strange, a stretch to call it a connection to metro though it is in walking distance. Itäkeskus' bus terminal will be rebuilt and the tram line will extend to it eventually.
