Public Transit

 

Public Transit

One of the many great things about our trip has been using Finland’s wonderful public transit system.  We are most familiar with Tampere’s Nysse system, but have also ridden trains all over the country, busses and metros in Helsinki, and also a bus from Turku to Nantaali.  Thankfully Amy had done plenty of research ahead of time, and managed all of the apps that we needed.

Everything is convenient, timely, and easy to navigate.  Trains are spacious, and have dining cars, as well as a play car for kids.  

The train company is VR, which is managed by the government.  The cars are clean, and employees friendly.

Nysse administers the Tampere transit.  At first we were worried that we might not be able to get the discounted local rate being out of towners.  But as usual, Finland excels at hospitality and as long as we had an address we could get a monthly pass.  It worked out to about 2.50 a day for Amy and I, and 1.50 a day for Milo.  All kids under seven are free, so Oscar saved us some money.  We each have separate cards, and Milo has done a great job of keeping track of his own, and remembering to scan it when we get on the tram.  It makes him feel pretty grown up.  Which he is.

Like many European cities Tampere’s transit is organized in zones.  But pretty much the whole central area is Zone A, and the surrounding areas Zone B.  We had an A-B ticket, and didn’t even explore all of it.  You’d have to get pretty far out to get to C.

Our pass was good for both trams and busses.  We mostly used the tram, which runs down the entire length of Hameenkatu, Tampere’s main street.  It’s a long and narrow city, so once we got off the tram, anything we wanted to see was just a block or two walk in either direction.  Occasionally we’d take a bus to get to something a bit more out of the way – usually a library.  

But it was a nice way to see some of the more suburban and rural parts of the city.  Tampere’s trams are mostly red (in Helsinki they are green and yellow) but some have wraps and decals around them.  

Our favorite is decorated with cats – there are even pawprints on the inside.

The culture on the transit is somewhat interesting.  Pretty much everyone keeps to themselves.  Usually people will give their seats up to elderly passengers, or those travelling with families, like us.  Many passengers have hands full with groceries or other items.  Pretty much the whole tram is completely silent at all times.  Many days it felt like our kids were the only ones making any noise at all.  

We were only talked to twice – once by an American expat who seemed overly excited to hear people speaking English.  Another time by perhaps the grumpiest Swede I’ve ever met.  That’s actually not fair.  I haven’t met any other Swedes.  So I have no comparison point.  It’s possible that in comparison to other Swedes he’s perfectly normal.  Maybe even unusually chipper.  But in comparison to every other human being I’ve ever met on the face of this planet he was unusually grumpy.

Kids also have a surprising amount of agency very early in their lives.  We saw lots of kids Milo’s age riding the trams and busses alone – navigating themselves to school, and hockey practice, and the libraries.  They didn’t seem scared or incapable.  We asked some Finnish parents we knew how they felt about it.  They loved it.  They weren’t worried at all.  They felt confident that if their kid got lost or scared or didn’t know what to do, any Finnish grown up would help them.

We’ve loved not having a car here.  Sure, some things have been less convenient.  But there’s so much that’s been so much more convenient.  It’s really nice as a pedestrian having fewer cars on the road to dodge when you are crossing the street.  I really wish I could just hop on the bus to get to work in Ellensburg, or to make a quick run to the store.  I wish I could get on a bus that comes every six minutes after drinking with my friends.  I wish we could take the train to Seattle for the day, and then ride home in a playcar.  I wish it felt safe to give my kids some independence, and not have to hover over them to keep them safe.  I wish I got to ride the cat tram one last time.

Hei Hei