Frequently Asked Questions – Street Maintenance

Streets and pedestrian paths are ploughed based on the street’s maintenance class. All streets have been categorized into three maintenance classes based on their significance to overall traffic. You can see the maintenance classes on the Oulu Map Service (LK 1, LK 2, or LK 3). 

Read more about the maintenance classes here.  

Ploughing pedestrian paths on private properties is the responsibility of the property owner. 

Residential streets are categorized as maintenance class III. The streets are ploughed within 12 hours after 6cm of snow has accumulated on the street, and immediately after all maintenance class II streets have been ploughed. Slush is removed once 5 cm of slush has accumulated on the street.

The property owner or holder is responsible for ploughing access roads to their property. The snow must be piled on the property. 

Snow from your property must be placed on your own yard or delivered to a snow dump site. Snow must not be placed on the city’s streets or parks. Snow from access roads must also be placed on the property. 

If you pile a lot of snow on both sides of the access road to your property, snow ploughs are likely to discharge more snow onto the access road, especially during springs. 

Snow dump sites (in Finnish) 

If you are certain that a snow plough is responsible for the broken mailbox or fence, please contact the maintenance provider in your area directly. You may check your maintenance provider from the Oulu Map Service (under Urakoitsija).  

When the weather gets warmer, snow and ice melt into slush on streets. Usually, all streets get covered with slush simultaneously. Slush is removed based on the street’s maintenance class. Slush is removed first from streets categorized as maintenance class I, then maintenance class II, and finally maintenance class III. 

As much slush is removed as possible in advance, but that is not possible everywhere. 

Streets are sanded based on maintenance class when streets are slippery. You can see the maintenance class of individual streets via the Oulu Map Service (LK 1, LK 2, or LK 3). 

Read more about maintenance classes here.  

When the weather gets warmer, sand often sinks into the ice. When the street freezes again, the street may become slippery again. In such cases, streets will be sanded again or the surface will be roughed to lift the sand from inside the ice. 

Sand and crushed stone with a grain size of 0–6 mm is used in Oulu to prevent slipperiness. Salt is used in some very specific individual places.  

Sharp crushed rock is sometimes used on pedestrian paths on condominiums and city properties which can sometimes end up on other streets maintained by the city. 

The city has a legislated responsibility to prevent slipperiness. All streets and pedestrian paths must be sanded. 

Unsanded areas can be a risk for the elderly, visually impaired people, and mobility impaired people. 

Even when snow and ice have melted during warm days, nightly frost may freeze the damp concrete again. 

Sands are removed from streets in the spring once snow has melted and nightly frosts have ended. 

Sand must be removed from streets and open areas within 3 weeks after the removal work was begun. The goal is to remove the sand as fast as possible. Sand is removed from streets based on maintenance class. You can see the maintenance class of individual streets via the Oulu Map Service (LK 1, LK 2, or LK 3). 

The property owner is responsible for the maintenance of surfaces on their plot. For example, if concrete on the access road is broken, the property owner must fix it themselves. However, if municipal excavation work breaks the access road’s surface, the city will repair the surface when they repair all other surfaces broken by the excavation work. 

The access road must not prevent water flow from the ditch or dip on the side of the street. If needed, the property owner must install a drainage culvert or stormwater inlet at their own cost. The culvert must be measured so that it does not cause the ditch to dam up. The culvert’s condition must be checked annually. Plants must not be planted at the culvert’s mouth that will prevent water flow. 

The road maintenance association or the area’s residents are responsible for the maintenance of private roads. The city is responsible for maintaining all streets within city planned areas. 

The city of Oulu repairs all surface damages on streets and greenspaces it owns after the construction is completed. All excavation areas are listed in the permit system; there is no need to contact the city separately. 

Repairs are done in one region at a time, and individual areas are not repaired immediately. Concrete and stone surfaces are repaired first, followed by greenspaces. Due to the large number of excavation permits, it is not possible to know the exact schedule of individual repairs. 

Issues and damages – such as poor clean-up of the excavation area or land subsidence – are the responsibility of the contractor. The contractor is not permitted to fill the ditch or drainage culvert in the excavation area. You may send feedback directly to the contractor or the cable owner. 

Rocks, fences, or other structures must not be placed on street areas. They impede the care of greenspaces, street maintenance in the winters, and can cause other issues. 

Parking in greenspaces is prohibited by the Off-Road Traffic Act. If parking is allowed on the street in question, the car must be parked on concrete.