Traffic jams possible at the Meilahdentie roundabout from September 8 to 29
Keywords:Traffic jams are possible at the Meilahdentie roundabout located next to the Oak Hospital and the Skin and Allergy Hospital due to temporary traffic re-routing from Monday, September 8 to Monday, September 29. The cause of re-routing is excavation related to the construction of the new Salvia building on the Meilahti campus. The excavation forces re-routing traffic to HUS staff garage through the roundabout.
Access to Meilahdentie roundabout from Paciuksenkatu. In the picture, Oak Hospital is on the left, and the Skin and Allergy Hospital is behind the trees on the hill.
There are two entrances to the underground parking garages designated to HUS staff. One of them, located on Stenbäckinkatu, must be closed for three weeks. The reason is excavation related to the construction of the Salvia building on the Meilahti campus. During this time, the staff can only use the entrance on Zaidankatu, which is accessed from the Meilahdentie roundabout. The same roundabout is used to access the Oak Hospital and the Skin and Allergy Hospital.
Re-routing all traffic to the staff parking through one entrance may cause severe traffic jams in the Meilahdentie roundabout. The worst jams are expected on weekdays at the start of shifts at about 7–8 a.m. and in the afternoons from 1:30 p.m. onwards with peak traffic occurring between 3:30 and 4:30 p.m.
“The situation is very unfortunate, and we have tried to solve it already when planning the construction. We are continuously discussing the situation with traffic planning at the City of Helsinki to prevent traffic jams at this junction also during normal conditions. We ask everyone using the junction to be patient,” says HUS’s Director of Real Estate Vesa Vainiotalo.
At the traffic lights located at the junction of Paciuksenkatu and Meilahdentie, the city's traffic planning has agreed to allow longer green lights for vehicles exiting Zaidankatu. However, the duration of the green lights is limited, because public transport along Paciuksenkatu has priority.
People driving in the area should reserve plenty of time for travel and also consider other means of transport, if possible.
Traffic re-routing is due to excavation in Meilahti
The construction site of the new Salvia building is located next to the New Children's Hospital and above the entrance to staff parking garage. This entrance must be closed due to excavation for three weeks and traffic must be re-routed to the Zaidankatu entrance. The garages remain open to the staff normally.
“The closure occurs at a difficult time, but unfortunately the overall construction schedule did not allow organising the closure during the summer, for example. We are very sorry for the inconvenience,” says Jaana Toivokoski, project manager of Salvia construction project at HUS Real Estate.
After the closure, the Stenbäckinkatu entrance will be open for one-way traffic for the first week of October, after which traffic will return to normal by October 8.