Over the coming decades, the surroundings of Turku Castle and the port area will be facing major changes. Guidelines are currently being prepared for what the area will look like in the future. The aim is, that Linnanniemi will be a centre of year-round urban culture where history, sea and archipelago can be experienced simultaneously. The area is also envisioned to be accessible with all forms of transport. To serve these purposes, a traffic and mobility master plan for the Turku port area was prepared within HUPMOBILE project.

“The preparation of the plan started in autumn 2019 and the starting point of the work was to create a plan for the development of the traffic arrangements and mobility services in the area, taking all modes of transport into account.” says Mervi Lehto, Project Manager from the City of Turku.

The purpose of the plan was to connect the planned ship passenger terminal smoothly and safely with its surroundings, improve the accessibility of the port area and promote forms of sustainable mobility. The master plan examines the area surrounding the new terminal as well as other traffic connections in the vicinity of the port area. During the work, interviews about passengers’ travel modes were conducted by Häme University of Applied Sciences (HAMK) in both passenger terminals to supplement the initial data. Also, a vision workshop involving different stakeholders was organized.

The reporting of the process as well as the results can be utilized in similar harbour destinations, where residential areas are growing in the vicinity of the port. The report provides insights and concrete tools on how to plan traffic arrangements, that support especially sustainable modes of transport in developing harbour area. The report also provides recent study results on residents’ mobility habits that could be utilized in other locations at least to some extent.

The material of the report has been compiled by WSP Finland Oy. The whole report is available in Finnish. 

Written by: Jenna Kaarela, project officer at the City of Turku