Turku will implement a package of winter measures to improve the activity, attractiveness, comfort, and safety of the winter season.
During the summer season, the city is an active and joyful place for events and diverse mobility. In winter, on the other hand, life slows down considerably when it comes to outdoor activities and outdoor events. Darkness, cold, snow and ice often hinder being outdoors and moving around.
Making an active and joyful city year-round is a challenge that the City of Turku aims to solve by carrying out urban space experiments as part of the EU-funded Scale-Up project. The project includes a package for improving urban mobility during the winter season, with the aim of getting city residents to enjoy active exercise and outdoor activities also during the winter season.
In the development of physical activity during the winter season, special attention is paid to children and the elderly. Residents' participation is important when testing measures and methods that affect their outdoor activities. Through extensive stakeholder cooperation, the city implements measures that include testing winter square and street concepts, lighting and art, events, and mobility. A winter square experiment was carried out on Piispankatu in winter 2022-2023.
Opinions on the possible implementation of a winter street are currently being collected from the residents of Runosmäki. What would you like to see on your way home or what would you like to experience in the midst of the polar night? What do you think would be good to try for a more active winter? What is the most important thing, for example, in enabling an active winter for children and the elderly?
Through experiments, the aim is to introduce operating models that can be replicated later in a way that targets identified needs. Step by step, Turku will be made a functional and interesting place for year-round and active life.