Vindbrovägen finally lit up

Over the years, there have been several suggestions and improvement proposals for street lights along Vindbrovägen, which runs along Uppsala’s river Fyris. This road is a popular route for pedestrians and bikers heading from Ultuna to the town centre and vice versa. With winter comes the darkness, compact and certain. Travelling along these 2 kilometres of road becomes a little more adventurous and precarious than you would like – in the dark, cyclists have been known to be involved in incidents with both hard-to-spot pedestrians and deer.

How hard could it be to have streetlights installed along this small stretch of road? Several rounds of contact with Uppsala municipality followed, starting in 2015. In 2019 it was finally decided that this was the responsibility of SLU as land owner. There were still obstacles – Årike Fyris is a nature reserve, meaning an exemption from nature reserve regulations was required, as was a species inventory.

Around this time, Vice-Chancellor Maria Knutson Wedel had joined SLU. She often bikes to and from work using Vindbrovägen and wondered why this well-used road was so dark? This gave the project new impetus and now, in March 2023, the street lights are finally in place, thanks to SLU! The lights are red to protect the bats who are not bothered by this particular light frequency. It will now be a lot easier, above all for winter cyclists, to travel between Ultuna and the centre of town.