Länsimetro | “I should get a car quickly” – the extension of the Länsimetro made Margit Luhaste’s commute from Espoo impossible

“Business trip is simply impossible”, laments a person waiting for a bus in Nöykkiö Margit Luhaste.

The reason for the complicated commute is the extension of the Länsimetro. Luhaste belongs to the group of residents who have not benefited from the new metro line – on the contrary.

“You have to travel a distance of five kilometers on three different buses,” Luhaste gasps.

Luhaste is not the only commuter whose travel became more difficult with the metro: with the line, direct bus connections from Espoo to Helsinki have been discontinued.

More and more people from Espoo have to change their means of transport in the middle of the trip.

However, for many Espoo residents, the change is positive, because you can now move east from Espoo faster than before.

According to Helsingin Sanomat’s report, this happened in Souka, Kaitaa, Espoonlahti, among others.

Some of the areas, on the other hand, lost significantly during travel times.

For example, traveling from the north of Länsiväylä, especially from Nöykkiö, is slower than before.

Western Metro the extension and its five stations opened to traffic in December of last year.

The new stations are Finnoo, Kaitaa, Soukka, Espoonlahti and Kivenlahti. With the introduction of the metro extension, bus traffic arrangements have also been changed.

The direct bus connections from Espoo to Helsinki have been discontinued, and the new bus routes direct more traffic to the metro and orange bus routes, i.e. the so-called trunk lines.

Before after the opening of the extension, HS collected information on how long it takes to travel by public transport from Länsi-Espoo to Keilaniemi. Keilaniemi was chosen as the destination for the trips because it is a large concentration of jobs.

The travel times were collected by entering more than 8,000 addresses from Länsi-Espoo into the route guide and by looking at the first five trips to Keilaniemi offered by the guide. The duration of the first five trips was averaged.

Corresponding data was collected for the second time in September 2023. By comparing the data, it is possible to examine whether traveling has accelerated or slowed down.

In the graphic, the blue color indicates that the travel time has shortened. In the orange areas, travel times to Keilaniemi have increased.

On average, travel times were shortened by about a minute. At most, traveling was faster by more than ten minutes, but in many places the journeys to Keilaniemi took several minutes longer.

However, the travel times offered by the route guide are subject to uncertainties, so the final result is only indicative.

One the area for which travel times seem to have clearly increased is Nöykkiö.

HS visited Nöykkiö on site to ask people how the extension of the Länsimetro has affected their use of public transport.

There, too, Luhaste, who is struggling with his work trip, is waiting for the bus, bored.

“I have three sons who have started to complain about always having to change vehicles. I thought it was the boys’ fault, they are teenagers,” he says.

“It’s the second week I’ve taken the bus to work, and they were right.”

Luhaste says that his commute is five kilometers. He makes the trip on three different buses. Previously, the trip was always made by car.

“There’s no way to succeed when a bus is always late or early and then you can’t get on the next one. Now I feel like I should get a car quickly. There is a lot of talk about green movement, but that change just doesn’t work.”

In Nöykkiö available in stores Virve Turkey used to go from Olari to Kamppi with a direct bus connection lasting 20 minutes.

“Now it would take almost an hour to travel by public transport. First, you should take a bus to Iso Omena and continue from there by subway,” says Turkka, who is retired.

So driving a car is much easier than public transport.

It only takes about 20 minutes to drive from Nöykkiö to Kamppi. From Olari, the journey is even faster.

“If there was still a direct 20-minute bus connection, I would travel by public transport. Both the long duration of the trip and the change affect the fact that traveling by public transport is not attractive, but time has a greater effect,” says Turkka.

In the barn resident I met Manninen gets off the bus in Nöykkiö with her child.

“I occasionally go to work on public transport. I feel that the changes have not disturbed my own journey. I get from one place to another about as quickly,” he says.

In the case of Manninen, the changes brought about by Länsimetro have not affected movement much. He still switches from the bus to the metro mid-way, just as he did before the Länsimetro was completed.

“I went on medical leave with my child [sisäleikkipuisto] in Hoplop. The new bus service went right next to it. It was a positive surprise,” says Manninen.

Wave university professor Miloš Mladenović considers the change brought by Länsimetro a positive thing.

Mladenović, who works with land use planning and traffic technology, examines the extension of the Länsimetro from the point of view of future spatial planning.

“If you look at functioning cities around the world, they have a good rail network in common. The metropolitan area is one of the fastest growing regions in Finland, so basically this is an investment for the next hundred or even two hundred years.”

According to Mladenović, for example, bus lines will certainly be changed as the residents’ mobility needs change.

Above all, however, he sees the change as part of broader regional planning.

“Directing living and movement closer to the trunk line also leaves more space for green areas,” he says.

“The body line should also be more reliable. If a bus on a direct bus line breaks down, the passenger is in trouble, but thanks to the trunk line, there are more options.”

of HS based on the comparison, travel times to the east of Espoo have accelerated in areas located near the trunk lines and slowed down farther from the trunk line.

Mladenović says that similar research results have also been obtained in Aalto.

For the most part, however, it is only a matter of differences of a few minutes.

“Studies have noticed that this kind of change can seem bigger to people than it is when viewed objectively. If the travel time increased by three minutes, it can feel like it increased by 15 minutes,” says Mladenović.

“Similarly, losing a direct bus line can feel like a significant loss, even if the travel time remains the same when traveling by bus and subway.”

Creating an efficient route network is therefore a complex task, because there are numerous starting points and destinations. There are always some routes that get less attention.

However, Mladenović wants to remind you that public transport in the capital region is among the best in the world.

“We have public transport that serves a wide range of needs and a wide range of people. In Finland, public transport is also used by all kinds of people, not just the poor like in the US, for example,” he says.