Over the past few months, many commuters have found that the drive to work has taken longer than usual. Rush hour traffic just keeps getting worse.
"Rush hour traffic will continue to increase as long as more cars keep coming onto the roads. I bet that it is going to go pretty far before it starts to decline," says Reijo Prokkola of the Finnish Transport Agency.
In addition to private cars, the flow of morning traffic is badly affected by heavy vehicles like long-haul lorries and delivery trucks. As the economy improves, more are more are reappearing on the roads. Between January and August heavy road traffic was up by 6.2% over the same period of last year. At the same time, the number of light vehicles has also grown by 1.4%.
Not only drivers the in the capital region, but also commuters in other major cities such as Tampere and Turku find themselves fighting heavier rush-hour traffic these days. Commuting times and distances have increase also because of the move by many people into satellite communities. And, at the same time, the capacity of public transport services has declined in rural areas.
"There are sure to always be traffic jams on some stretches of the road network. We just can't ensure a road network with the capacity to fully handle, for example morning and afternoon traffic, the work rush hours," points out Reijo Prokkola.
Toni Bollström is one Helsinki commuter who is fed up with traffic jams.
"Sometimes my working days get really long. Especially if there are wrecks during the rush hour, it takes even longer," says Bollström.
