Tallinn's Pollinator Highway (Putukaväil) — A 13 km Railway-Line Green Corridor Through Six Districts

The Pollinator Highway (Putukaväil) grew from a 2019 brainstorming event at Tallinn's Urban Planning Department. An environmental study identified high-voltage power-line corridors as a key axis for insect pollinators reaching the city core, and the plan follows an old railway line from Kopli freight station to Hiiu, about 13 km through six districts and nine urban space typologies (housing, industrial land, wasteland, parks and forests).
The first construction phase, reported by ERR as a 14 km linear park tied to Tallinn's European Green Capital year, carries an €8.3 million contract, most of it for utility reconstruction, with walking and cycling routes, play and sports facilities and gardens alongside the habitat function.
A sensor network used for the Estonian Environment Agency's local climate regulation work, as reported by the Stockholm Environment Institute, found that in summer 2022 densely built areas had 8–12 tropical nights versus 0–8 in greener areas, and averaged about 2 °C warmer at night than greener spaces along the corridor, up to 5 °C on clear nights. These figures describe the cooling value of green space generally; they are not a measured effect of the completed corridor. Pollinator abundance outcomes have not been published, and part of the budget is utilities rather than habitat, so the evidence score is low.

Read the full analysis: https://vana.ajakirimaja.ee/en/?p=19208