[FIN] Roads and motorways in Finland • Moottoritiet Suomessa

[Aphelion]

Originally Posted by Palance

Something very interesting I saw was on road 4 (E75) Southbound, about 90 before Rovaniemi. This stretch looked like a temprary/abandoned airstrip.

Can anyone tell me what this is, since I haven't found anything about it.

It might very well be a former airstrip/road airbase. Sweden has quite a few, and I think Finland might too.

[ChrisZwolle]

They are called a "varalaskupaikka", and there are quite a few of them in Finland, Wikipedia has a list:
http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lentoko...aralaskupaikka

This one on Valtatie 4 is the Joutsa emergency landing strip. Apparently they still do exercises with them.

[Kevlargeist]

Originally Posted by IceCheese

I don't get it. Both white and yellow center stipes?

The dashed yellow line means that a no-passing zone is soon about to begin. It concerns you and your vehicle when there's no center line or no-passing-line on its rights side. Thus in this picture it concerns the opposite direction of travel.

[MattiG]

Originally Posted by ChrisZwolle

They are called a "varalaskupaikka", and there are quite a few of them in Finland, Wikipedia has a list:
http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lentoko...aralaskupaikka

This one on Valtatie 4 is the Joutsa emergency landing strip. Apparently they still do exercises with them.

The "emergency landing strip" is official newspeak only. In plain English, they are temporary military airbases.



The roads are closed for several days during the exercises.

The normal roads have been used for emergency landing a few times. It was only three weeks ago, when a Cessna faced an engine failure, and the pilot made a successful landing on the motorway 7/E18 about 30 kilometers to east of Helsinki:

[spacetweek]

Originally Posted by RV

Kehä III Vanhakartano-Airpoirt and Road 4-Road 7/E18
Upgrading of Ring III in Vantaa to a 3+3-laned urban motorway. Construction is expected to be started this or next year.

RV, I cannot find Vanhakartano anywhere on the map. Did you spell this wrongly?

[Palance]

http://maps.google.nl/maps?q=Vanhaka...,6.888428&z=15

[metasmurf]

I found this stretch of road close to Nokia outside Tampere. Is it 2+2 or? Kinda hard to know by the road markings. A very unusual concept that I've never seen before.

http://maps.google.com/?ll=61.481648...12,232.87,,0,0

[Rebasepoiss]

That looks really dangerous.

[MattiG]

Originally Posted by metasmurf

I found this stretch of road close to Nokia outside Tampere. Is it 2+2 or? Kinda hard to know by the road markings. A very unusual concept that I've never seen before.

http://maps.google.com/?ll=61.481648...12,232.87,,0,0

It is a 2+2 street having islands at most of the crossings. No big risk to get lost.

[Grisent]

Originally Posted by MattiG

It is a 2+2 street having islands at most of the crossings. No big risk to get lost.

Indeed, that seems to be a city street, with 50 km/h and 60 km/h speed limits.

On the contrary — I'm pretty impressed with Tampere's road network. The vt 3 / vt 12 interchange nearby is a pretty good one; would be nice to have even one of these in Estonia... And there's even a four-level stack interchange where vt 3 / vt 9 split: http://maps.google.com/?ll=61.461821...7.86,,0,0&z=15

I was just today wondering about one specific issue; maybe somebody can help me. In a case where two roads numbers are multiplexed along a significant distance (as is the case with vt 3 / vt 9 between exits 32 and 40, for a total of thirty kilometres), how are kilometer posts set up? The road does not have two sets of kilometre posts concurrently running, does it?

[MattiG]

Originally Posted by Grisent

I was just today wondering about one specific issue; maybe somebody can help me. In a case where two roads numbers are multiplexed along a significant distance (as is the case with vt 3 / vt 9 between exits 32 and 40, for a total of thirty kilometres), how are kilometer posts set up? The road does not have two sets of kilometre posts concurrently running, does it?

The Finnish road administration decided to ramp down the concept of kilometer posts in 1980's. A few roads only have those still remaining. In case of multiplexes, the posts did usually follow the road having the lowest number.

The posts were replaced by distance sings. Usually, there is a separate sign for each destination:

[MattiG]

Pictures from motorway 1/E18


The road 1 connects cities of Helsinki and Turku. The distance is 165 kilometers of which 157 kilometres is motorway. The road is signposted as E18, too, between Helsinki Ring III and Turku.

The first section of the motorway was built between years 1956 and 1962 at the Helsinki end. The last section between Lohja and Muurla was complete in 2009. Thus, it took 53 years to renew this road between the major cities.

From the construction point of view, almost the whole road was build onto a challeging terrain: The road runs east-west, and there are dozens of north-south rock ridges to cross, with clay-filled valleys in between. Building roads in Finland is expensive due to the arctic conditions: The roads must stand the annual temperature variations of 80 degrees centigrade and the pressure of the moving ice. The Lohja-Muurla section building cost exceeded the average cost significantly. That is why the political decision making took decades.



The first section in 1960's before the number of cars rocketed



The road was extended in years 1965-1971 to Lohjanharju, 44 km west of Helsinki. It was drawn without tunnels and major cuts between hills and lakes, making it rather windy.



The Helsinki end is an urban motorway currently being partly upgraded to 3+3 lanes.



Because of the cost reasons and running in a sentivive environment, the Lohja-Muurla section was built into as narrow corridor as possible. There is only a few metres gap between the shoulder and the rock.



In many areas, there are massive noise barriers made of concrete walls or excess material. This wall is made of stones in metal net boxes.



A 'green bridge' allowing animals to cross the road. Long sections of the road is protected against elks by a fence.



There are a number of automatic weather stations to show the temperature of the air and and the road surface. This information is vital on cold days, as the road may be extremely slippery if the road temperature is close to zero.



The remote controlled signs may tell other stories than the temperature, too. Here the signs warns about the road marking work taking place.



There are eight twin-tube tunnels between Lohja and Salo. Some of those are located very close to each other.



Descending into the Hajala valley



The E18 branches before reaching Turku. The southern branch leads to the port of Turku, and the northern one to the port of Naantali.

[Norsko]

which of the two last photos shows the most frequent use of exit signage in Finland?

[MattiG]

Originally Posted by Norsko

which of the two last photos shows the most frequent use of exit signage in Finland?

The sign officially called 'Type A on Motorways' is usually in use when main roads meet or if there are many destinations to show. The sign 'Type B on Motorways' is in use elsewhere, and it is more common. On non-motorways the signs are slightly different, but this same rule of thumb applies.



Type A on Motorways



Type B on Motorways

[Norsko]

Thanks!

[Grisent]

A very nice report, thanks!

Do you happen to know if the whole road has been built on a new alignment, or are there any stretches that have been upgraded from an ordinary road?

The emergency lane on this picture looks kind of... different. Is it still a hard sholder, or might that be gravel?

Originally Posted by MattiG

[ChrisZwolle]

I assume it's paved, it looks that way in Denmark too.

[Fargo Wolf]

Could be chip seal type paving.

[MattiG]

Originally Posted by Grisent

A very nice report, thanks!

Do you happen to know if the whole road has been built on a new alignment, or are there any stretches that have been upgraded from an ordinary road?

The emergency lane on this picture looks kind of... different. Is it still a hard sholder, or might that be gravel?

The whole road was built on a new alignment, and the old road was downgraded to the regional road 110. Most sections of the new and the old road run in parallel rather close to each other (within two kilometres):



Motorway (green) and the old road (blue)

My historical sources do not give any hint to the question of shoulders. I do not believe they were gravel but some less expensive material than asphalt.

Anyway, the shoulders were built more lightweight than the structure under the lanes. That became a problem in 1980's when there was a need to convert the eastbound shoulder to a bus lane close to Helsinki. In order to avoid excess load, it was allowed to drive on the bus lanes only during the morning rush hours.

Nowadays, the same place looks pretty different: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Stensi...2,98.65,,0,3.2

[Grisent]

Thank you very much!