A real global revolution is underway to reinvent city centres, a slow one perhaps, but still very real. Paris has grand car-free plans, Amsterdam is becoming increasingly less open to traffic, and Seattle is closing roads and areas vehicles. There are more and more cities around the world that are staring to make bold moves to remove traffic from areas in the centre. City leaders and the public are taking steps to make their urban areas much less car friendly, and much more focused on new public spaces, pedestrian areas, cyclists and public transport. Surely, it’s the kind of change that the small, forward facing cities of the Baltic States should be right at the forefront of, striking out boldly and making the kind of changes that are much more difficult in major metropolises. That’s not quite how the mayor of Tallinn, Mihhail Kõlvart, seems to see it though. While the city government is planning to create a city centre cycle path network, but they aren’t going to do anything overly ambitious or bold very quickly. Speaking to Pealinn, a regional newspaper, on Tuesday, Kõlvart said: "We definitely can't make radical decisions or take away half the space [for cars] and give it to cyclists. Tallinn is like a bow tie in shape, and the most narrow area is in the center city. We also need to take into account that 30 percent of the traffic comes from outside of Tallinn. The shape of the city means that the traffic load is extremely heavy on the center city." On the topic of cycling, it might be easy to dismiss the idea of increasing cycle paths in cities where the weather is less than tropical, but in the same interview Kõlvart explained that the number of cyclists in Tallinn in actually increasing a lot, which is why more cycle lanes makes sense. "We are planning to create a bicycle lane network to the center city. In the future, every big road construction will bring along a well-thought-out solution where there's a place for public transport, cars and cyclists. Initially, we want to build so-called optimal quick solutions in the city, which use different ways for cyclists to create their own space for commuting. Currently, cyclists drive next to cars, which is dangerous for cyclists, or next to pedestrians, which is dangerous for the latter. Electric scooters are particularly dangerous for pedestrians.” The work to implement those quick solutions is planned for June, and it’s easy to see why the planning might prove difficult. It’s simply not possible to fit the same amount of pedestrian walkway, and the same amount of roadway for cars, and also add a cycle path and increase public transport, something has to be reduced and the most sustainable choice would be the cars. It’s great that Tallinn is doing something, and improving infrastructure for cyclists can definitely be seen as a step forwards in reducing traffic, lowering emissions, and improving quality of life in the city centre. On the other hand though, it’s kind of a shame that they don’t have more ambitious immediate plans. It should relatively easy for a city with a population of less than half a million, especially one that is aiming to be European Green Capital in 2023, to become largely car free, improving pedestrian access, integrating cyclists in a safe way, and becoming a leader in public transport.

Tallinn has no 'radical' plans to become more car-free

So Veli

The shape of the city means that the traffic load is extremely heavy on the center city.

That sounds like a good reason to change something more than good reason not to.

I understand what he is saying, you can not just close roads everywhere without better solution but hope they are working on finding that bigger better answer.

Piri

So Veli I understand what he is saying, you can not just close roads everywhere without better solution but hope they are working on finding that bigger better answer.

That's true. It is important to make the best development which would be good and possible to fulfill the needs in the future in the long term, not just now for the sake of making it.

Treebeard

Welcome to Europe where we can not implement any project that will make real change and takes less than 10 years.

Tallinn, Vlinius, Riga, Kaunas. All of these cities are small enough to be able to make real change, become very sustainable, and be the kind of cities that the rest of the world looks at and plays catch-up with, and also to integrate transport and other infrastructure together to get the best from it, but that just is not happening at the moment.

John

Treebeard

I'm with you on this, but city mayors, local governments, and national governments all face the same problem.

Doing anything big in any way polarizes people, it shouldn't if the thing you are taking action against is going to destroy the planet and the lives of everyone on it at some not too distant future point, but it does. Polarize people too much and you won't get necessary votes through whatever body you need to actually get the stuff done, and you also won't get re-elected to actually see that it gets finished and not just sidelined by your successors.

Treebeard

John and so nothing changes or if it does it is very slowly. It is time to make big decisions about this kind of thing, decisions that will upset some people but will make a difference. We went wrong a long time ago and now we have to start to correct it.

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