The secret to Oulu's suburban cycling success story

This is a vastly shortened version of my live interview recording of a ride w/ Pekka Tahkola in Oulu, Finland on that city's comprehensive, cohesive, and connected off-street network of bike and pedestrian facilities that are appropriate for All Ages & Abilities.

Oulu is a city of 200,000+ residents and largely built in a sprawling suburban context and this network proves that people of all walks of life, in impressive numbers, will ride all year round when that network is safe and inviting and well maintained.

Watch to see how they do it and pay particular attention to their approach to avoiding direct conflicts with cars completely, strategically using buffering to lessen motor vehicle noise nuisance levels, and dedication to maintenance, especially in the snowy conditions of wintertime.

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Credits: Video, music, and audio production by John Simmerman

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Background:
Hi Everyone! My name is John Simmerman, and I’m a health promotion and public health professional with over 30 years of experience. Over the years, my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization in how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.

Since 2010, I've been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be while striving to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a "Culture of Activity" for "All Ages & Abilities."

The Active Towns Channel features my original video content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.

Thanks once again for tuning in! I hope you find this content helpful and insightful.

Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2022

[sylwiawrzosek]

Awesome, looks like science fiction! And a bike network plan in ... 1971!

[PekkaTahkola]

Thank you John! It was such a pleasure to work with you for this video. Waiting for your visit to Oulu so you can see everything with your own eyes 🤗🚲💨

[markcramer]

Love those underpasses, and his bicycle as well!

[colleenharrison]

Good representation of the "bicycle super highway".

[MILFPV]

I've cutted thousands of the lower branches of the trees next to the bike paths you see on this video. Its a neck breaking job.

[wimahlers]

Very Dutch-like cyclepaths.
I hope that is true too for all other major Finnish cities and suburbs.

[GreenJimll]

At the start was the information about the induction loop and optical sensor the right way round? I'd assume soft squishy pedestrians would just fire off the optical sensor, but cycle users would fire that and their bike would also trip the induction loop. So one signal for peds and two for bike users?