462 page views
Much has been done already, but much more remains to be done.. Kehä I (Ring Road I) as we call this road, is one of the busiest roads in the metropolitan area. It has been too narrow from the very beginning, and now new lanes are being built.
It does take a long time with all the different working stages.
It is estimated that in 2012 everything ought to be ready.

In Helsinki there are about 550 000 inhabitants, but in the metropolitan area (Helsinki, Espoo, Kauniainen, Vantaa)about one million.
Even if the gas/petrol is very expensive in Finland, the amount of cars is continuerly growing and new roads are desperately needed. The traffic on Kehä I
consists of all kinds of cars, from trailer lorries and coaches to smaller cars used on way to work and shopping centres.


Wikipedia:

Ring I ("ring one", Finnish: Kehä I, Swedish: Ring I) is the busiest of all highways in Finland, carrying up to 113,000 vehicles per day. It is the innermost
of the three beltways in the Greater Helsinki region, numbered as regional route 101
and runs from the eastern-most part of Espoo to Itäkeskus in eastern Helsinki. The total length is 24.2 kilometres (15.0 mi), of which 16 km (9.9 mi)
are in Helsinki. It is primarily intended for local traffic — before the large road numbering change in the 1990's and the reconstruction
of Ring III, Ring I was also designated as a bypass for avoiding Helsinki centre.

Ring I has at least two lanes per direction for its entire length but a speed limit that never exceeds 80 kilometres per hour (50 mph) owing to heavy traffic.
With the introduction of new grade-separated interchanges, provisions have been made to increase the speed limits to 70–80 km/h[clarification needed]. Eventually, all of the junctions on Ring I will be upgraded to grade-separated interchanges.
However, the road was not originally constructed as a motorway, which limits its capacity.[clarification needed].

As of 2008[update], a major modernisation project on the road is under way at Leppävaara, Espoo, where the road is being diverted into a tunnel.
The aim is to ease the flow of traffic in what was previously the worst traffic bottleneck in the Greater Helsinki area.