[HN Gopher] Europe's Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway
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Europe's Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway
Author : imartin2k
Score : 256 points
Date : 2023-04-28 06:44 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (reasonstobecheerful.world)
(TXT) w3m dump (reasonstobecheerful.world)
| jwr wrote:
| I'm jealous. If my country built a tunnel like that, it would be
| for cars _only_ (preferably old polluting diesel, with fuel
| subsidies), so that "normal people" can use it. With an added
| whiff of coal power plant smoke.
|
| Oh well. Growing civilized takes time.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| There is crazy entitlement of cars to the detriment of
| everything else. It's like privilidge/something-ism.
|
| In Uk there is a particular crossing where cars were frqeuently
| hitting pedestris on the pavement, and traffic authority
| decided againt putting up bollards becauae cars _might get
| damaged_.
|
| So its more important to keep a car undamaged than to keep
| people/children safe.
|
| We've had people cut up bollards with an angle grinder.
| Bollards in the shape of a large planter was soaked in petrol
| and burned to the ground
|
| Nobody cares, noone is charged and this does not even make the
| news.
| systemtest wrote:
| Sounds a lot like Central or Eastern Europe. I'm optimistic and
| believe that in about 10 to 15 years you will have caught up
| with Western European pedestrian and cycle infrastructure. You
| might even surpass them due to first-mover disadvantage.
| vrglvrglvrgl wrote:
| [dead]
| okamiueru wrote:
| [flagged]
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| 1.8 miles? Not that impressive, more of a curiosity of
| governmental funding.
|
| I always wondered if elevated biking lanes, especially in urban
| areas, would be far cheaper and safer than bike lanes
| intermingled with surface streets. Some high strength plastic
| that is lego-assembled and bolted to buildings. or maybe just
| suspended from cables between the skyscrapers.
|
| I know everyone loves to hate, but the boring project would be
| great for things like this. Yes they are targeting auto tunnels,
| but with EV come a far easier range of mixed vehicle (scooter,
| ebike, moped, golf cart, side-by-side, atv, etc) use, without
| those noxious tailpipes that make tunnels problematic (yeah you
| still need air ventilation, but probably don't need complex
| systems for hoovering out carbon monoxide). The boring company
| demo is kind of stupid for full size cars... but for man-portable
| vehicles (aka a healthy human could lift it) it makes a lot more
| sense.
|
| Although really I think this is still an urban compromise design.
| Really the influx car streets should be forced to be elevated or
| tunnels, and the entire surface area of cities are ebikes,
| scooters, and only heavily restricted permitted delivery trucks.
|
| So while it is cool that they tunneled down the transport, what
| really needs to happen is that all car transport in urban areas
| is moved away from killing bikers and pedestrians.
| Hanschri wrote:
| Bergen municipality released a 25 minute video[0] of the bike
| ride through the tunnel and into the downtown area of Bergen.
|
| If 'sakte TV' or slow TV is something you like, I could also
| recommend checking out The Bergen Line minute by minute[1], which
| is a seven hour broadcast of the train going between Bergen and
| Oslo. A peaceful and beautiful train ride.
|
| [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42q15E2YE8Y [1]:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udF0IXB2FZA
| sgt wrote:
| Imagine if there was a cycling culture like this in the South.
| Places like Chattanooga with skinny cyclists all over the
| place.
| Jedd wrote:
| > ... in the South.
|
| Well, most of Europe is south of Norway, and there's a lot of
| comparable cycling culture and facilities there.
|
| Unless you mean south of the equator, like here in Australia,
| but unfortunately we're not so good with that. I can't speak
| to much of the rest of the south (of the equator)
| unfortunately.
| pi-rat wrote:
| I suspect he means the southern parts of the US.
|
| (Which are the most car oriented states, IIRC)
| sgt wrote:
| I meant the USA
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| As someone that has enjoyed Minneapolis St Pauls heavily
| interconnected bike path system, and then goes to uber-car-
| centric southern areas (not even shoulders on the roads to
| support bikes), it blows my mind, especially some place like
| Houston.
|
| You don't even have "real winter"! It is far easier on a bike
| dealing with rain than dealing with six inches of snow and
| packed ice. Four seasons of bike trips! Don't they know what
| they are missing?
|
| And with e-bikes and the like, you don't even need to worry
| about getting sweaty in the 100 degree heat. Instead it is an
| awesome breezy trip.
|
| Houston for example has the beginnings of this: a big path
| down some stream/water transport that splits down the middle
| of the city (Macgregor or something like it. A built in ebike
| crosscity-thoroughfare, you just need to urban plan some
| extension bike lanes and boom the city is 10x more bikeable.
|
| But Houston is, for example, forbidden by the Texas
| legislature from funding any mass transportation, because the
| Texas GOP is ... insane. Well, everything in Texas is insane.
| artjumble wrote:
| A great channel with tons of the Bergen-Oslo train route is
| RailCowGirl. https://www.youtube.com/@RailCowGirl
| liotier wrote:
| Other large cycling tunnels:
|
| - Rotterdam's Maas Tunnel:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6UUinjhQgM
|
| - Antwerp's Kennedytunnel:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7CsUnQ5BY0
|
| - Paris' Parc des Rives de Seine's tunnel:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAIXHVolUmg
|
| - England's Tyne Tunnel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR4je-
| ndz7E
|
| - Nam Han River's tunnel:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFNrxpeLtAU
|
| - Lyon's Tunnel de la Croix-Rousse, with yours truly pedalling
| through it:
| https://youtu.be/JDvBNsVMkRc?list=PLBcwv3gb0JkpDlYfh-yfBWqtS...
| arethuza wrote:
| Also the Innocent Railway tunnel in Edinburgh - not that long
| but with an interesting history (a railway tunnel that
| predates steam):
|
| https://blog.historicenvironment.scot/2021/02/innocent-
| railw...
| bombcar wrote:
| Snoqualmie Tunnel:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7Hze1R8Gg8 (more of a hiking
| trail, but you can bike it if you have lights). Not purpose-
| built; it's an old train tunnel.
| riffraff wrote:
| holy cow this is a beautiful tunnel
| deafpolygon wrote:
| Sometimes I wonder why the Dutch hasn't done this yet.
|
| But then I remember, it's entirely flat here.
| CrampusDestrus wrote:
| The best thing about pedestrian/cycling bridges and tunnels is
| that they cost soooo much less money to build since they have so
| much laxer requirements.
|
| The reason why we still have roman bridges standing is because
| the stress contribution of a human walking on it is basically
| zero. But start bringing in cars and trucks and see it crumble in
| a week
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "because the stress contribution of a human walking on it is
| basically zero."
|
| If that would be the case, armys would still march on bridges.
| But they don't.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broughton_Suspension_Bridge
| timeon wrote:
| So instead of marching they need to be walking.
| seri4l wrote:
| >But start bringing in cars and trucks and see it crumble in a
| week
|
| There are some Roman bridges that still get automobile traffic
| (Romerbrucke, Puente Alcantara) or were only recently
| pedestrianized (Puente Romano). There are more probably, that's
| just what I found after skimming some Wikipedia pages.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_bridge
| mkoubaa wrote:
| Not sure about structurally but in terms of ventilation I think
| this is right
| adav wrote:
| Tell that to the engineers of the Millennium Bridge in London.
| Resonance from foot traffic caused it to start swaying,
| requiring shoring up with massive dampers.
| CrampusDestrus wrote:
| No matter the traffic, a bridge should always be built to
| avoid resonance. Unstable dynamical systems do not care if
| it's a truck or a feather, they'll resonate and collapse.
| substation13 wrote:
| I believe that road wear is proportional to mass ^ 4
| thecopy wrote:
| This is true. Road damage scales with the _fourth_ power of
| axle load.
|
| Pedestrian and bike infra for majority of cases in dense areas
| is objectively better in all metrics except human laziness and
| entitlement
| wiredfool wrote:
| Eh, not exactly.
|
| Pedestrians are heavier than cars in terms of pounds per square
| foot.
|
| Bridges are designed for extreme loads, including pessimistic
| pattern loading, and the requirements for pedestrian bridges
| aren't any less safety critical.
|
| (edit: I designed this bridge: https://www.google.com/maps/@47.
| 597616,-122.3297804,3a,75y,7...)
| goodpoint wrote:
| > Bridges are designed for extreme loads, including
| pessimistic pattern loading, and the requirements for
| pedestrian bridges aren't any less safety critical.
|
| In terms of maximum load you are right, but wear and tear is
| completely different.
|
| Trucks are terrible, pedestrians and bikes have _zero_
| impact.
| bombcar wrote:
| > Trucks are terrible, pedestrians and bikes have zero
| impact.
|
| Truck loading _is_ very large, but pedestrians _do_ have a
| non-zero impact - look at the solid marble steps of ancient
| buildings, for example.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| I think though that the pedestrian wear is only on the
| roadway surface, rather than structural wear from, say,
| trucks vibrating enough to crack the bridge or throw off
| bits of concrete.
| niccl wrote:
| there's more to it than just pounds per square foot. speed
| over the bridge matters too, which is why you get speed
| restrictions on some bridges
| netrus wrote:
| If these early '00 bridge builder games have taught me
| anything, you want to go as fast as possible, as you might
| reach the other side as the bridge is still in the process
| of collapsing ;)
| gns24 wrote:
| Yeah, the potential loading is annoying. I remember wondering
| why predestrian/cycle bridges were always so annoyingly
| narrow despite having low loads. The issue is of course that
| they have to be strong enough to support being crammed with
| hundreds of people when everyone is there to watch the local
| fireworks/rowing race/anything else that's happening, even if
| that happens almost never.
| medstrom wrote:
| If you built a rope-bridge, I'm sure people would beware of
| cramming it. Maybe it's possible to build designs that
| discourage.
|
| Where are you from? I haven't seen an "annoyingly narrow"
| ped/cycle bridge in Sweden or Belgium.
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _"Where are you from? I haven 't seen an "annoyingly
| narrow" ped/cycle bridge in Sweden or Belgium."_
|
| I'd say most of London's busy pedestrian/cycle bridges
| and tunnels are annoyingly narrow.
|
| Even taking cyclists out of the equation, they can get
| congested at times, particularly with tourists stopping
| to take photos from the middle etc.
|
| So a cyclist can either be polite and move at pedestrian
| speed, which is annoying for the cyclist. Or weave and
| dodge pedestrians at speed (typically Deliveroo/UberEats
| riders on e-bikes) which is annoying and dangerous for
| pedestrians...
| DonHopkins wrote:
| >If you built a rope-bridge, I'm sure people would beware
| of cramming it.
|
| You're not American or British, ehe? ;)
| bombcar wrote:
| Or many other countries, I've seen enough video of bridge
| collapses to know that if people CAN cram on it, at some
| point they WILL cram on it.
| [deleted]
| ghaff wrote:
| See also this story about the Golden Gate:
| https://www.sfgate.com/local-donotuse/article/golden-gate-
| br...
|
| Love this quote: Friday marked the 32nd anniversary of the
| walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, an event The
| Chronicle's Peter Hartlaub once referred to as "the largest
| clusterf-- in Bay Area history where no one actually died."
| seattle_spring wrote:
| > "There were cheers as some people started to hurl
| bicycles over the railing," he wrote. "A stroller tumbled
| down and sank beneath the waves 220 feet below. 'Throw
| the baby, too,' people yelled, laughing.
|
| I admit that I chuckled at this.
| bloak wrote:
| This is interesting! But how does a dense crowd of people
| compare to a queue of lorries carrying cement or building
| materials in terms of mass per square metre?
|
| Let's try to find some data ... ... ... A fully loaded
| Hanson cement lorry seems to be 32 tonnes / 2.55 m / 9.15
| m, which is about 1.4 tonnes per square metre. That
| corresponds to 20 x 70 kg people per square metre, which
| would be a disaster whether or not the floor gives way,
| unless it's a very special kind of crowd (acrobats or
| something).
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| Lots of roads and bridges have a limit on axle load
| permitted on them. You can't do that with pedestrian
| bridges.
| INTPenis wrote:
| Ok I'm clearly talking to an expert here but isn't there a
| factor of vibration from vehicle traffic to take into
| account? And sure humans if packed into a bridge might be
| heavier than cars per square foot, but they're usually not
| packed like sardines on a bridge.
| terom wrote:
| Famous example of pedestrian bridge resonances: https://en.
| m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Bridge,_London#Re...
| INTPenis wrote:
| Sure but again, just like packing people onto a bridge
| like sardines, it's an unusual circumstance. While
| vehicles driving all day over a bridge is not unusual.
| And even vehicles getting stuck on a bridge due to some
| traffic issue is not unusual either.
|
| One has to consider what is daily use, not just the
| exceptional cases.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand that comment. "Well, yeah, the
| bridge collapsed but it was an exceptional case. It
| worked fine for typical daily use."
| earthnail wrote:
| Here is how I understand the comment:
|
| We have a car bridge designed to withstand exceptional
| load, and a pedestrian bridge designed to withstand
| exceptional load. The commenter assumes that on average,
| the car bridge's load is much closer to it's maximum load
| than the pedestrian bridge's load, and in consequence,
| the average wear on the car bridge should be higher than
| on the pedestrian bridge. As such, the pedestrian bridge
| should have a much longer lifetime, and the commenter
| assumes that this is the reason old Roman bridges are
| still standing.
|
| Their question is: is this assumption correct?
| bombcar wrote:
| It probably is _not_ correct, because the pedestrian
| bridge max load is probably something like "what if an
| idiot drove a car down it" whereas the car bridge max
| load is "what if it was full of very heavy trucks and one
| burst into flame".
|
| You also have to take failure modes into account, and how
| degraded the bridge can get before it's "unsafe".
| detrites wrote:
| Sounds good to me, _ship it._
| endisneigh wrote:
| > One has to consider what is daily use, not just the
| exceptional cases.
|
| generally it's the exceptional case that it's designed
| around though
| wiredfool wrote:
| Somewhat. There are a bunch of 'failure' modes that you
| want to avoid (either actual failure or service level
| issues), and some bridges are going to be closer to one
| mode than another.
|
| It's a little like memory pressure vs cpu vs disk vs
| network. There are some services that aren't going to ever
| hit one of them because the others are limiting first.
| Memcached is never going saturate disk.
|
| If you've got a bridge that's 'stiff' or 'heavy' (like
| truss/beam/whatever) resonances are unlikely to be an
| issue. If you've got anything light and flexible or with
| cables, you need to be thinking _hard_ about resonance, in
| all the modes, torsional being one that's bitten designers
| bad in the past.
| quonn wrote:
| Citation needed. What about the type of concrete used,
| especially the limited lifetime of reinforced concrete?
| trabant00 wrote:
| [flagged]
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| Not sure if you're aware but this bikes vs trucks thing is a
| strawman.
|
| Nobody has ever suggested that things that require trucking
| should be done by bike.
| marzipanWhale wrote:
| I yearn for the day when I can use my swan pedal boat to go
| to China to pick up my aliexpress shipment.
| CrampusDestrus wrote:
| But that's not what I implied
| trabant00 wrote:
| I know, I was making fun. Just putting bike and trucks in
| the same sentence and comparing their infrastructure needs
| is already too far for me.
| tokai wrote:
| But there wasn't any joke, nor any argument. You just
| popped up out of the blue stating a feeling you have -
| unrelated to the thread.
| CalRobert wrote:
| I'm a Notjustbikes superfan and love my bike, but container
| ships are a marvel of efficiency and emissions per kg per km
| are probably better for the ship.
|
| cyclist: 21g CO2 per km lifecycle - https://ecf.com/news-and-
| events/news/how-much-co2-does-cycli...
|
| Say I can manage 100kg on a cargo bike, that puts us at 210mg
| CO2 per km per kg.
|
| Container ship: 16g CO2 per tonne per km -
| https://8billiontrees.com/carbon-offsets-credits/carbon-
| ecol...
|
| 1 tonne = 1000kg so 16 / 1000 = 16mg CO2 per km per kg
|
| Of course, that will massively depend on diet, conditions,
| and whether the bike trip was taken purely for transporting
| goods or whether I needed a workout anyway and it's a two
| birds with one stone situation. Then again, the sheer
| efficiency of container shipping might be why I take it as
| given I can buy some random cheap item manufactured 10,000 km
| away for a few euro and thereby bring about Jevon's paradox.
|
| I'd still take a EuroVelo route to Canada though if it's on
| offer!
| chmod775 wrote:
| This calculation doesn't quite work because the human's
| food emissions also come from stuff like transport in that
| supply chain.
|
| The basic grow food -> (feed to animal ->) eat food cycle
| is CO2 neutral by itself. You can feed a human in a carbon-
| neutral way.
| rob74 wrote:
| Well yeah, if container ships wouldn't be as horribly
| efficient, manufacturing _everything_ in China, or shipping
| various stages of garments halfway around the world, which
| leads to the finished product having traveled more than
| those that have worked on it will in their lifetime, wouldn
| 't be possible. The problem with container ships is not
| just the CO2, but also that they burn the worst of the
| worst fuel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_oil#Environm
| ental_issues).
| lm28469 wrote:
| I feel like the greatest trick they recently played on us
| is to focus everything on CO2...
|
| CO2 is but a small part of the equation, container ships
| release other nasty things. Even for cars co2 isn't the
| main issue, particulates from tires and brakes will fuck
| you up faster than any amount of co2
|
| > The two main pollutants from a ship's emissions are
| Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) and Sulphur Oxides (SOx). These gases
| have adverse effects on the ozone layer in the troposphere
| area of the earth's atmosphere which results in the green
| house effect and global warming.
| CalRobert wrote:
| I generally agree but it was an interesting thought
| experiment nonetheless.
|
| And particulates are nasty stuff, especially considering
| that it's not like they tend to be biodegradable.
| short_sells_poo wrote:
| Imagine a cyclist who exists on a diet of beans, beer and
| dairy. Perhaps slightly lower CO2 emissions but vastly more
| methane and various mercaptans :D
| CalRobert wrote:
| Would want to replace the dairy with someone without an
| animal origin ideally. And pyroflatulence could be an aid
| to reducing methane emissions.
| tokai wrote:
| Last mile shipping for many goods can definitely be served by
| bicycles.
|
| https://scm.dk/sites/default/files/styles/2400px/public/carg.
| ..
| thecyber wrote:
| [dead]
| vidarh wrote:
| One of the articles linked at the bottom of the article includes
| a video:
|
| https://www.bicycling.com/news/a43249948/longest-cycle-tunne...
|
| And the CNN article linked at the bottom has more pictures:
|
| https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/worlds-longest-cyclin...
| frumiousirc wrote:
| And, of course, there is a car parked in the bike lane blocking
| the entrance to the tunnel (very start of the video).
| eajakobsen wrote:
| To be fair this video was recorded before the tunnel
| officially opened.
| stainablesteel wrote:
| i suppose the air won't be so bad because of a lack of cars?
|
| i love the idea of it but i think it might end up being a
| "dangerous neighborhood", i hope they have cameras
| tmilard wrote:
| Bergen is a wonderfully city. I remember. I lived at a families
| place in my 20s. So nice. It doesn't surprise me.
| kevsim wrote:
| Just be sure to bring a raincoat
| tgv wrote:
| A colleague of mine applied to the university of Bergen. At
| the interview, they gave him a promotional gift: an umbrella.
| lb1lf wrote:
| While everybody in Norway (including the citizens of
| Bergen) like to quip about the Bergen downpour, it really
| isn't that bad.
|
| Annual precipitation is approx. 2,500mm, distributed over
| some 230 days.
|
| The wettest place in Norway, on average, is Brekke a couple
| of hours north of Bergen, receiving some 3,500mm annually.
|
| As I used to say when living in Bergen if a tourist asked
| me if it always rained there - 'No idea, I've only lived
| here for fifteen years!'
| tgv wrote:
| The Netherlands is already considered somewhat of a wet
| country, and I think it normally stays under 1000mm per
| year. So 8 months of 10mm per day seems more than a bit
| damp.
| philip1209 wrote:
| Out of curiosity - what role, if any, does Norway's massive oil
| wealth play in these types of infrastructure projects? (Can the
| "pension fund" directly fund this?)
| Hanschri wrote:
| No, only about 3% of the yield is used in the state budget
| yearly. The oil fund does not invest any of its money in Norway
| in order to avoid dutch disease. It is not earmarked for any
| specific use, but instead gets used to make up the difference
| in tax revenue and state budget. NBIM has more information in
| English about the fund here: https://www.nbim.no/en/
| atombender wrote:
| All petroleum surpluses go into the Government Pension Fund
| Global (one of three wealth funds that the government manages).
| The state is allowed to withdraw from this fund, mostly to
| cover shortfalls in the state budget.
|
| The target maximum withdrawal rate since 2018 has been 3%. This
| rate is a guideline only, and the government is allowed to
| exceed it. Since 2000, in most years the withdrawal rate has
| much far below the limit (see charts here [1]), but sometimes
| exceeded, most recently in in 2020 and 2021.
|
| [1] https://www.regjeringen.no/no/tema/okonomi-og-
| budsjett/norsk...
| DonHopkins wrote:
| >Halfway through, a sundial shows the time.
|
| I'd love to know how that works in a tunnel!
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Talk about not only burying but practically omitting the lede!
|
| Apparently it's quite the impressive underground sundial.
|
| https://bicyclenetwork.com.au/newsroom/2023/03/30/worlds-lon...
|
| https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-worlds-longest...
|
| https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/worlds-longest-cyclin...
| proto_lambda wrote:
| So it's an art installation reminiscent of a sundial, not an
| actual sundial.
| biomene wrote:
| It's the escape tunnel for a tram tunnel with an extra coat of
| paint: https://www.lifeinnorway.net/bergen-cycle-tunnel/
| rob74 wrote:
| Strange, I have never heard of a separate escape tunnel for a
| _tram_ tunnel. Even German U-Bahn /S-Bahn (which I am most
| familiar with) tunnels usually just have a walkway beside the
| tracks that leads to the next station or emergency exit. But I
| guess that also depends on length between possible
| stations/exits, or it's due to newer regulations, or maybe it
| was a "mixed calculation" ("if we build a separate tunnel, it's
| more expensive, but it can also be used as a bike/pedestrian
| tunnel").
| doikor wrote:
| The problem here is similar to underwater tunnels. Making an
| emergency exit straight up is not possible or too expensive.
|
| In this case it is too expensive/unpractical as you would
| have to dig several hundred meters up a mountain. Also a
| tunnel going sideways is easier for those who can not walk.
| And this long stairs up could be a problem even to those who
| can walk.
|
| For those who don't know the tunnels goes through a 477m high
| mountain/hill and both ends are roughly at sea level.
| usrusr wrote:
| Subway tunnels usually aren't that far from the surface, even
| those that dive/rise between stops. So they just dot in a few
| emergency stairs to the surface if stops are too far apart.
| This tram tunnel however apparently is a shortcut through
| some mountain (because otherwise, the bike sibling wouldn't
| make much difference), so the emergency exit problem isn't
| easily solved by digging vertically.
| bombcar wrote:
| It depends on the length of the tunnel, the traffic in the
| tunnel, and various other requirements.
|
| Older tunnels the "walk away from the dead train" option was
| heavily used; but more often now they try to deal with "get
| away from the horribly burning dead train that will suffocate
| everyone".
| cjrp wrote:
| > It will cost an additional NOK 500 million to upgrade the
| tunnel from an emergency service to one that can be used daily.
|
| $46M USD, to save cyclists 5.5km/20 minutes; that seems like a
| pretty good return.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| Let's assume the saving of one life....
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| Okay. Taking the 20min saved per ride from the article, and
| 300 rides that would otherwise take the longer route per
| day out of my ass, we get 100 hours saved per day. That's
| approximately 4 days saved per day.
|
| From https://www.fhi.no/en/op/hin/population/life-
| expectancy/, life expectancy in Norway is about 82 years.
|
| Together, that means the tunnel will save one human life in
| about 20 years, not taking into account pedestrians, or
| indeed realistic usage numbers.
| rsynnott wrote:
| 300 users a day sounds improbably low for an urban route.
| ubercore wrote:
| And avoid 20 minutes of getting soaked in Bergen, also a
| plus.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| > _$46M USD, to save cyclists 5.5km /20 minutes; that seems
| like a pretty good return._
|
| That obviously depends on a lot of parameters, not least how
| many cyclists are impacted and how often.
| altacc wrote:
| One of the factors other replies haven't considered is that
| Norway routinely spends a lot on transport infrastructure,
| with cost-benefit just one of the factors. This project was
| relatively cheap compared to the constant building of tunnels
| for cars that happens across the country. A typical project
| costs many times more than this.
|
| Per capita Norway is one of the highest spenders in the
| world, due to the size and low population density of the
| country. Even with all this spending, transport in some
| places, especially the north, is slow & inefficient. This has
| resulted in a high number of airports and Norwegians flying
| more than almost every other nationality.
| sweettea wrote:
| Indeed, if we assume cyclists use the tunnel 100 days a year
| going both ways through it, thats saving each one nearly 60+
| hours a year. If each one's time is worth $20, that is over a
| thousand dollars per cyclist per year - it only takes 9k
| cyclists to make the savings outweigh the costs in five
| years.
| elygre wrote:
| And assuming that this will increase the number of people
| who choose to bike instead of to drive, you can also add
| savings for all the remaining drivers who get a slightly
| easier commute.
| thecopy wrote:
| And net reduced road maintenance and external costs
| coming for reduced car usage
| cjrp wrote:
| And a healthier society (on the whole) as people are
| encouraged to cycle. Less diabetes, etc.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| And a happier society as it's far more fun to cycle than
| to drive in traffic
| goodpoint wrote:
| Plus the health benefits of cycling and the ones of not
| being involved in driving accidents.
|
| Plus the saving in car TCO and fuel, plus less road
| maintenance.
| k4rli wrote:
| [flagged]
| CalRobert wrote:
| Not everything must be about increasing profits, but
| being responsible with the public purse to the benefit of
| all is a worthy goal. Of course, if you do that you
| quickly find many car-oriented projects shouldn't have
| been built in the first place.
|
| Also:
|
| * It is unkind and unhelpful need to make personal
| attacks based on the poster's national origin or
| religion.
|
| * A Catholicism-oriented email provider doesn't mean
| they're from the US. For instance, they might live in
| Ireland, another country with horrifically bad urban
| design and a lot of Catholic people
|
| * Be nice.
| Macha wrote:
| > * A Catholicism-oriented email provider doesn't mean
| they're from the US. For instance, they might live in
| Ireland, another country with horrifically bad urban
| design and a lot of Catholic people
|
| I'm sure you're aware since you live here, but for the
| benefit of other HN users, Catholics in Ireland and
| Catholics as perceived by US media are quite different.
| US media perceives Catholics as one of the more
| conservative and devout Christian variants, and my
| understanding is that even within Catholic institutions
| the US branches are considered much more conservative
| than Rome. However, between the decline in the Catholic
| Church's societal influence and the various abuse
| scandals that led to that, your median self-reported
| Catholic in Ireland is much less religiously focused than
| the imported born-again churches and actual overt
| religious devotion is much less common in Ireland
| overall.
|
| So even living in Ireland, with the census figures
| claiming the Catholic share is as high as you mention, I
| too would assume anyone who is actively and outwardly
| religious enough to seek out an email provider on that
| line is American or at least influenced by American
| religious culture. Add to that that our population of
| devout Catholics are aging, so are also not the
| demographic who generally seeks out niche email providers
| anyway.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Certainly, but my point is that it's still entirely
| possible they're not in the US. Plenty of Catholics
| throughout the Americas for one thing.
|
| Also if you come to the midlands you'll find a huge
| number of "Jesus I Trust in You" sacred heart posters all
| over the damn place. I've been asked if I'm C or P more
| than I ever expected. Our neighbours told us they were
| Catholic within literally 10 seconds of meeting us. They
| tried to suss out what we are by asking where our kids go
| to school - they fancy themselves clever. But maybe
| that's what I get for moving to Offaly.
| bombcar wrote:
| And to top it off, people come from _families_ and may be
| using the family email server /setup because it's
| easier/cheaper than switching.
| patall wrote:
| The calculation given is probably not right, but every
| european (and ideally world-wide) infrastructure project
| will have a cost to benefit analysis. Even if just to
| decide on which project to build next.
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| It sounds very nice and morally fulfilling to denigrate
| any numerical calculus of welfare; but in the end you
| still have to deal with monetary budgets that represent
| limited societal supply of labor and resources.
|
| You may try to take a moral high ground and say that
| people are more important than $X million, but those
| money also represent potential housing, cancer treatment
| research, green energy investment, etc that won't be
| financed. You cannot get away from measuring value of
| time and toil of people, at least implicitly. Why not
| then make it explicit and be mindful of it?
| goodpoint wrote:
| > It sounds very nice and morally fulfilling to denigrate
| any numerical calculus of welfare
|
| Many of those "numerical calculus" measure only savings
| in time, fuel, etc and attribute ZERO value to saving
| lives, improving quality of life and even improving
| mental health. Such calculations are not pragmatic, they
| are highly ideological.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| Ideologues everywhere use statistics as a pretext for
| their lies. Water is wet. More breaking news at 11.
| ericmay wrote:
| Also in an American context "saving money" or other
| "efficiency gains" anrguments appeal to a broad group of
| people and can build consensus. You don't need just one
| message, you can have different messages for different
| audiences to sell them on the idea.
|
| Also for the GP you shouldn't call people out for having
| an email domain listed if you are too fearful to have
| yours listed. Be nice.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Why only 100d/y while Norwegian works around 190d/y? In my
| experience people tends to have a "main" commute mode that
| they only turn away from in exceptional cases. Easier to
| live with habits that mixing your timetables every other
| day.
| MagnumOpus wrote:
| People might use cars or public transport instead of a
| bike to commute if there is heavy rain or snow. This is
| an important consideration in Bergen which is notoriously
| the rainiest city in Europe (it rains more than half the
| time).
| snovv_crash wrote:
| Luckily it doesn't rain (or snow) inside of tunnels.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| So there are places in Europe where it rains more than in
| UK?
| wartijn_ wrote:
| Yes. Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Albania.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_averag
| e_a...
| arethuza wrote:
| That's averages over the whole countries though - the
| north and west of the UK (particularly the Scottish
| Highlands and the Lake District) are a _lot_ wetter than
| the south-east where London is.
|
| Also, "volume of rain" might be misleading because it
| doesn't give you a feeling for how often it rains. The
| Highlands in particular can have a light rain that falls
| for weeks at a time (or at least seems like it if you are
| in a tent).
| smugma wrote:
| Most of the Bay Area gets about the same amount of rain
| as London. The key difference is that in Cupertino/Los
| Gators/Palo Alto it rains less often but with more
| intensity.
| ubercore wrote:
| Welcome to western Norway. Bring a raincoat!
| tyfon wrote:
| Not just a raincoat, I've had snow, sunny summer, storm
| gusts, hail and rain on the same day just this week, I'm
| int he SW though not entirely west.
|
| I remember one time a few years back when I lived in
| Stavanger, I went to the post office in the city center
| there in a bright nice summer day and came out to
| torrential rain and rivers in the street!
| ornitorrincos wrote:
| yes: https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-
| maps/figures/average-annu...
| lebski88 wrote:
| Bergen is one such place funnily enough.
| [deleted]
| Technotroll wrote:
| The tram line in Bergen was discontinued in 1965. Source:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergen_Tramway
| lb1lf wrote:
| -This would be an escape tunnel for the Bybanen, a light
| railway more comparable to the S-Bahn than a tram as such.
| skrebbel wrote:
| Smart move!
| h1fra wrote:
| Amazing project!
|
| However, I would not do it by foot, even with the best intentions
| like they seems to have 40minutes in a tunnel will bring me down
| ahah
| kristofferR wrote:
| As a Norwegian - it's always weird to me to discover news from
| Norway, that I haven't heard about in Norwegian (news) before, on
| international sites.
| trabant00 wrote:
| Why can't we support and encourage cycling without vilifying cars
| in these threads? I've seen plenty of places that do both very
| well, like Spain. Everybody has a car and bicycle (at least one)
| and uses whatever fits the purpose at the time.
|
| I get it, when there's not cycling infrastructure everybody is
| forced to take the car even if it doesn't make any sense, like
| for short trips, good weather, single passenger, no significant
| cargo, etc. But there's plenty of occasions when you really need
| a car.
|
| Also, taking Spain as an example again, scooters and motorcycles
| are often a better compromise. Practical speed for longer
| distances like commuting to work, better weather protection,
| larger cargo capacity, can take 2 people, etc. Why are they
| always ignored in these threads? Is this an American thing?
| smallpipe wrote:
| They're naturally opposed in a way. Bike infrastructure is car
| infrastructure, you need protected cycle paths etc where
| there's a lot of cars or they're going fast. If it wasn't for
| cars, the current infrastructure is great for bikes.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| I can recommend Carlton Reid's "Roads Were Not Built For
| Cars" book as a history of the early development of modern
| roads (i.e. tarmac). Many of them were funded by cycling
| societies before cars became commonplace. Also quite a bit of
| interesting history of the early cars.
|
| https://roadswerenotbuiltforcars.com/
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > Why can't we support and encourage cycling without vilifying
| cars in these threads?
|
| In many places you have to win back some space from cars to
| make cycling/scootering/ anything viable.
|
| For example in London we have a tonnel, Blackwall tonnel, built
| in 1890's - basically before cars existed. Its the only way to
| cross the river in east london for miles. It was open to
| people, horses, bicycles.
|
| When cars became common, it was converted into a road, bicycles
| are banned. The story of non-car transportation is a story of
| routes and land being taken away from you.
|
| Anyway, now in London they are building Silverstown tonnel near
| blackwalll tonnel, exclusively for cars. But there is still no
| way to cross the river on foot. I saw a news article about the
| old blackwall tonnel being pedestrianised, but then realised it
| was 1st of April.
|
| Also they are building a railway for 100 billion in UK, and the
| original plan envisioned cycle route along all of it, from
| london to birmingham. But then budgets were cut and the cycle
| route was removed to save wopping 0.01% or whatever
|
| > Also, taking Spain as an example again, scooters and
| motorcycles are often a better compromise.
|
| I think this is a good point, there is also a wide array of
| electric non-bicycle mobility solution that fit well onto
| public transport and trains.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Where did you see people vilifying cars at the time of your
| post ?
| Tade0 wrote:
| I think it might be an American thing - at least the
| polarization part.
|
| Over here in Poland some of my friends and relatives switched
| to scooters(125cc typically) when fuel prices spiked and are
| largely happy with the result - especially this one guy who
| used to daily a Nissan Pathfinder. Of course this becomes
| difficult in winter and inclement weather conditions, but I
| also see fewer cyclists then.
|
| People need to realize that even the Dutch generally have cars
| and drive. It all works because they thought and fought hard to
| get to this point.
| eythian wrote:
| > People need to realize that even the Dutch generally have
| cars and drive.
|
| It depends a lot where you are. Live in a major city and very
| few people have cars, they're expensive and spend a lot of
| time just sitting around taking up space and money. Go to a
| less dense area and they're a lot more common.
|
| Also, pay-by-the-minute or whatever car rentals aren't
| uncommon for when people need them but don't want to actually
| own one.
| Tade0 wrote:
| > It depends a lot where you are.
|
| Of course it does because it's like that everywhere in
| Europe. I wouldn't expect many e.g. Parisians to own cars.
|
| My point was that there's a whole spectrum of lifestyles
| with rational choices behind them and you can't just brush
| over that with a simplistic solutions like "ban cars".
| kristofferR wrote:
| That's one of the biggest strawmens I've ever seen.
| Nobody is saying that they want to ban cars outright,
| they want to ban cars in city centers, in order to make
| them walkable.
| dazc wrote:
| 'Everybody has a car and bicycle...'
|
| I'm not sure this is true, but, on the wider point of cars v
| cycles it comes down to the usual problem of neither not
| wanting to share the same space. I have lived in Spain, though
| mainly live in the UK, and in either place I would not feel
| safe riding a bike (or scooter) on a public road.
|
| I should add that car drivers and bike riders can be as bad as
| each other, it's just that car drivers usually have the upper
| hand in terms of protection.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| As a cyclist, I don't have an issue sharing space with other
| traffic, but I do have an issue with the hyper-aggressive
| drivers that seek to scare and/or injure cyclists by not
| giving them enough space when overtaking. There's also the
| abusive drivers that shout at you and beep their horn at you
| if they disagree with any choices that you've made such as
| which road to use.
|
| Drivers and riders are hardly comparable in terms of
| dangerous behaviour and that's without even taking into
| account any consideration of pollution and environmental
| destruction (e.g. car parks, lithium mining etc.)
| LeanderK wrote:
| > As a cyclist, I don't have an issue sharing space with
| other traffic, but I do have an issue with the hyper-
| aggressive drivers that seek to scare and/or injure
| cyclists by not giving them enough space when overtaking
|
| I haven't generally seen that in Germany, although I have
| only lived in cities with a generally good biking
| infrastructure. The only time when I get uncomfortably
| close is either due to fundamental infrastructure
| constrains (intersection squeezed in between buildings) or
| if some stupid delivery van parks on the bicycle path so I
| have to overtake it by crossing into the road. I wonder if
| more cyclist would normalise the situation so that abusive
| drivers calm down.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| I'm in the UK and it's very noticeable how much nicer the
| German drivers have been when I've gone there (just
| Munich and Berlin). Most surprising was when drivers were
| wanting to pull out of a side street, but waited
| patiently for cyclists to go past without any hint of
| impatience or anger.
| dazc wrote:
| In the UK we have 'Vehicle Excise Duty' which used to be
| known as 'Road Tax'. There is a commonly held
| misconception that this 'tax' goes directly to the
| provision and maintenance of the road network (it
| doesn't, it's just another tax), hence the entitlement of
| some car drivers when confronted with, what they perceive
| as, a cycling free-loader.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| For extra irony, sometimes those drivers are in EVs that
| also pay no emissions tax.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > There's also the abusive drivers that shout at you and
| beep their horn at you
|
| Yep, happened to me.
|
| Also there is a 'compulsive overtaking syndrome' where a
| driver feels they must overtake the bicycle even if you are
| exceeding the speed limit on your bicycle. Even if there is
| not enough space.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| The technical term for that is MGIF (Must Get In Front).
| It's especially bizarre when there's queueing traffic
| just ahead, so they overtake and then you almost
| immediately filter past them. It seems as though they're
| not able to look ahead and anticipate their own progress.
| arethuza wrote:
| The absolute worst are drivers who do the MGIF thing then
| immediately do a left turn right in front of you!
|
| Edit: Slight correction - the absolute worst were the
| kids who thought it would be amusing to throw a brick at
| me while I was commuting by bike through the outskirts of
| Edinburgh. Fortunately their aim wasn't very good.
| Tade0 wrote:
| My absolute favorite (deep-fried sarcasm here) part of
| this is when they overtake and then slow down below your
| speed - regardless if you're driving or cycling.
|
| As if it was somehow tiring for the car or something.
| Glawen wrote:
| As a cyclist in a town with a lot of cyclist, I see less
| aggressive behaviour in my town, than in the countryside
| where people are not used to cyclist. I was discussing with
| a fellow cyclist and we agreed that some countryside places
| were particularly full of aggressive drivers.
|
| The more cyclist you have, the less aggressive it becomes
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| That matches with my experience too.
|
| One particular problem with city motorists is mobile
| phone use, especially in traffic queues. People like to
| think that they can context switch between using their
| phone and paying attention to their vehicle surroundings,
| but I would disagree.
| Macha wrote:
| I spent a few months down in the country last year, and
| definitely encountered this. Drivers don't know how to
| react, so you tend to get reactions from given massive
| amounts of space (not that I'm complaining) to passing at
| breakneck speed.
|
| Though there's other sides to it too, like the local
| youths who apparently find cycling inherently amusing and
| worth an attempt to intentionally run me off the road. It
| happens in other places too, there was an actual
| conviction last year because someone got recorded doing
| it at motorway speeds. I also learned last year that
| "rolling coal" or intentionally annoying cyclists with
| truck emissions is something in some parts of the US too.
|
| On the plus side though, you can leave a bike just
| leaning against the outside of the store safely though,
| while an inadequate lock is grounds for getting your bike
| stolen in the city. I guess it's due to the lack of
| anonymity and places to sell stolen bikes out there. You
| will need to though, as there's nothing to lock the bike
| to outside the country store.
| Glawen wrote:
| > Though there's other sides to it too, like the local
| youths who apparently find cycling inherently amusing and
| worth an attempt to intentionally run me off the road.
|
| I second that, this winter I was cycling in the night,
| and local youths found it would be funny to scare me
| while they overtake me. One night I had 3 cars who did
| this "joke".
| ghaff wrote:
| >Why are they always ignored in these threads? Is this an
| American thing?
|
| I don't know but Vespa-type scooters are very uncommon in the
| US. Motorcycles are less rare but are widely considered (with
| some justification) to be dangerous as a form of
| transportation. (It doesn't help that there are some crazy
| motorcyclists out there though of course many aren't.)
|
| May have something to do with the type of road infrastructure
| and traffic, or just custom, but don't really know.
| LeanderK wrote:
| > I don't know but Vespa-type scooters are very uncommon in
| the US
|
| why? They are also quite common in germany for people living
| in the city and very useful to get around in the city. I
| personally bike but I see the appeal.
| ghaff wrote:
| No idea about the why. Vespas were a bit of thing maybe 20
| years or so ago in the US but, while I think I know one
| person who owns something along those lines, they just
| aren't very common in my experience. (Maybe because car
| ownership is higher and it tends to be either/or?)
| rsynnott wrote:
| > But there's plenty of occasions when you really need a car.
|
| Eh, depends on your needs, really. I've gotten along without
| one for decades; I keep meaning to learn to drive, but it never
| rises to the top of the priority list as I just don't really
| have a use for it.
| cubefox wrote:
| Also works for me, though it is not optimal in my more rural
| area. Big cities should be fine.
| ghaff wrote:
| People also just adjust. If you don't drive--or at least
| can't rent a car easily/don't want to--you just tend not to
| do activities or go places requiring that you do so. I
| couldn't get by day-to-day without a car but even if I
| lived in the city, I'd regularly want to drive one to visit
| people, do weekend activities, etc.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Eh, I find I can get wherever I need on public transport,
| in general. Now, that said, I'm not regularly going to
| very rural areas, or anything.
|
| I mean, it definitely wouldn't work for everyone, but for
| me, I can walk or get public transport anywhere I need to
| go (and this is in Dublin, a city that is... not known
| for the excellence of its public transport; they'll
| finish the underground train one day...)
|
| Now I'm in my late 30s, I also have the vague
| superstitious belief that the enforced walking is keeping
| me alive; if I wasn't doing that I'd be pretty sedentary.
| ghaff wrote:
| If I lived in Boston, there's basically no way I'm
| getting to the mountains, north shore, Cape Cod, western
| suburbs/exurbs where a lot of people I know live, etc.
| without a car that I either own, rent, or someone else
| does. The city itself has a pretty good public transit
| system and there's even a pretty good commuter rail--but
| that's designed for coming into the city from suburban
| train stations with parking lots. So I'd be pretty much
| limited to the metro itself without a car in some form.
|
| Which is fine for some people. They'll just naturally
| tend to avoid activities that are a pain to do in one way
| or another.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Yeah, my impression visiting the US has been that once
| you leave a big city, things become difficult to navigate
| alarmingly quickly. It's a bit different here; the
| suburbs and other cities and towns are usually fairly
| accessible via public transport.
| ghaff wrote:
| I think that's generally true. While it's not like you
| can easily get to every corner of the British Isles or
| Western Europe generally without a car, there's a _lot_
| you can do out of Dublin or London with public transit
| and maybe the odd cab ride. Generally good as Boston 's
| public transit system is, other than taking the train to
| New York City, flying somewhere, or taking a bus to
| someplace that is mostly not very interesting without car
| transportation on the other end, your options are pretty
| limited beyond what's covered by the greater metro
| transit system.
| Tade0 wrote:
| That's interesting to me because my family's weekend
| trips were almost always to such places.
|
| There's more to do than in the city and the restaurants
| are generally better - you just need to drive there.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Ah. So I think basically anywhere near here that has
| restaurants that anyone would be bothered about making a
| trip for would also be within walking distance of a bus
| route. The places that you really _can't_ get to on
| public transport are very rural.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| there is one thing I hate more than a car and thats loud
| motorcycles that ruin everybody's peace
| Moldoteck wrote:
| because cars pollute, produce a lot of noise, take a lot of
| space when not used(so majority of time), infra for them is
| expensive(roads and parkings) and it should be maintained
| frequently and bc of them a lot of people die (at least where
| average speed is >30km/h) I'm fine with electric motorcycles
| that are speed limited by design and have slower start
| acceleration by design, this would be really nice
| pastacacioepepe wrote:
| > Why can't we support and encourage cycling without vilifying
| cars in these threads?
|
| Because cars pollute the air I breath, car horns constantly
| stress me, because politicians and city planners will use cars
| as a justification to develop cities as asphalt wastelands,
| because pedestrians and bikers are killed daily by unruly car
| drivers and so on. Plus somehow cars manage to bring out the
| worst in every person. Road rage is a thing.
|
| > Everybody has a car and bicycle (at least one) and uses
| whatever fits the purpose at the time.
|
| I don't have a car. I either bike, walk or use public
| transportation. I don't even live in an area where public
| transportation is great.
|
| > scooters and motorcycles are often a better compromise
|
| Still deadly in accidents and still polluting. The only thing
| that would make sense is low speed electric scooters, but those
| dont work well either in suburban sprawls like the US and
| Canada have.
| cubefox wrote:
| One absurd but conventionally normal thing is that cities
| have to build wider streets just because car drivers will
| inevitably transform them into parking lots, on both sides,
| halving their width. Old streets often seem narrow, but they
| aren't really narrow when they aren't full of parked cars.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| It would be lovely to see parked cars disappear if
| autonomous cars become common enough. However, that would
| also rely on people deciding against car ownership and
| moving over to a shared vehicle model.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > against car ownership and moving over to a shared
| vehicle model.
|
| We already invented this: public transportation.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| The problem is when public transport doesn't match with
| the people's requirements.
|
| If I were made world leader, I'd subsidise public
| transport so that it's more or less free to use for the
| public in an attempt to wean them away from private cars.
| It would then make sense to expand the network as more
| and more people choose to use it.
| pastacacioepepe wrote:
| Autonomous electric cars solve only some of the problems
| cars create while exarcebating others. In a world where
| semiconductors and rare minerals already cause a lot of
| geopolitical tensions, do you really think it is feasible
| to migrate most of the world cars to autonomous electric?
|
| There is only one solution that solves all of the
| problems car create and has several other benefits.
| Rethink the urban and infrastructure development for
| walkability and shorter travels. We can't avoid it, like
| it or not.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| I do agree. Electric cars were invented to save the car
| industry, not the planet.
|
| I consider that the main problem with cars are their size
| and weight, so simply electrifying cars doesn't solve
| issues such as congestion or pollution from tyre wear
| (which can be comparable to the emissions from an ICE).
| Here in Bristol, UK, we've got a lot of people using
| hired e-scooters (the privately owned ones aren't allowed
| on public roads without a license, insurance etc.) and I
| think they're a great way to get people around cities. As
| they're small they don't need huge batteries and thus
| they're much lighter and carry far less kinetic energy
| into collisions. A large percentage of the batteries in
| electric cars are used to move the batteries around,
| rather than just moving the passenger(s) and vehicle.
| E-scooters and e-bikes are great for delivery services as
| they can avoid getting stuck in traffic congestion and
| the batteries can be swapped out for fully charged ones
| in a matter of minutes if needed.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| I think it's mainly a U.S. thing as their cities are designed
| around personal car usage. That leads to the separation of
| living spaces and facilities (i.e. the anti-15 minute city) as
| more roads need to be built to cater for all the traffic which
| then leads to the distances increasing until a car is needed
| for almost every journey. Once you have cars dominating as the
| form of transport, it becomes dangerous to use other vehicles
| as most drivers will inevitably just be looking out for other
| cars and not two-wheelers.
| bigpeopleareold wrote:
| Mentioned here before, but there is also a tram tunnel (well,
| light rail*) next to it (new line opened just recently.) I work
| near it but I haven't took a peek in yet ... I need 30-45 minutes
| to walk through it :)
| cyclecount wrote:
| Bergen's population is just over 200k. European cities or even
| large towns have prioritised public transportation and liveable
| infrastructure like this in a way that only New York really has
| in the US. I don't think there is a single 200-thousand-person
| city in the US where you can do a single things without a car.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Do you mean that 200k is a particularly bad size of U.S. city?
| There are certainly smaller cities that have _some_
| accommodation for cyclists, like Davis, California, or Boulder,
| Colorado.
| cyclecount wrote:
| Some accommodation is nice. It's not enough to not own a car
| entirely.
| bombcar wrote:
| It can be in some locations, if you're willing to take the
| limitations.
|
| Minneapolis has a decent network:
| https://go.minneapolismn.gov/final-plan/bicycling/all-
| ages-a... (but of course you have snow half the year).
|
| Cars are very useful, and they even exist in Europe; the
| reasonable best one ca do is work out a non-car commute and
| use it less - but it is possible to be entirely car free in
| many American cities (especially if you're willing to be in
| a smaller town that you can literally walk across).
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| I think what you mean to say is that there are few "medium"
| cities in the US where "techie and richer" people elect to
| voluntarily live without a car.
|
| You absolutely can live without a car in a lot of these cities
| but if and only if you _want_ to bike. If you want to ride a
| lot of public transit it 's gonna suck.
|
| What you can't do is do it in a trendy way that "befits your
| tax bracket" so to speak and prevents the white collar types
| from looking at you like you're inferior when you bike lock
| your cargo bike to the lamp post beside the liquor store.
|
| As for bigger cities, you absolutely can live without a car in
| Boston, DC, SF, Atlanta, Chicago, and the list goes on but
| toward the bottom it's gonna require more biking and less
| public transit.
| cyclecount wrote:
| Living without a car in those cities is severely limiting; I
| tried to do that in two of those and felt it was very
| difficult to buy groceries and get to work quickly and do
| easy recreation things on the weekend. It's not even
| practical to stay out late in many of those cities.
|
| The only city in the US where you can live in most
| neighbourhoods and not be limited without a car is NY.
|
| And all of those cities you mentioned are significantly
| larger (600-800k).
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| >Living without a car in those cities is severely limiting;
| I tried to do that in two of those and felt it was very
| difficult to buy groceries and get to work quickly and do
| easy recreation things on the weekend.
|
| So now we're just splitting subjective standard of living
| hairs? I think we can all agree that living car free in
| Manhattan is fine and living car free in nowhere Idaho is
| not but drawing a line in the middle always just turns into
| a dumb circle jerk.
|
| >It's not even practical to stay out late in many of those
| cities.
|
| That's mostly because people who think they know how other
| people should live don't want the bars open all night and
| in cases where that's not politically possible to just
| decree they screw with other things they can effect like
| public transit schedules.
| cyclecount wrote:
| It's really not that hard of a line to draw. Can you
| enjoy all of the opportunities of city life without a
| car? Do most people not own a car? There's one city in
| the US where those answers are "yes".
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| Your line of reasoning reeks of Europe worship with a
| token exception for obfuscation purposes. There are tons
| and tons of people who live in places like Boston and SF
| and Chicago without cars and do not feel any worse off
| for doing so. I used to be one of them. I would go so far
| as to say these people can enjoy all the opportunities of
| city life. Are they a majority? Probably not. But that's
| mostly a figment of how these cities absorbed their
| urbanized suburbs in the 20th century.
| bombcar wrote:
| Even Europe isn't car-free; sure, if you're a tourist and
| you visit Rome you can go all vacation without a car or
| even setting foot in one, but the people who live and
| work there often have (or want) a car. And there are
| things you just can't do in Rome without a car or car-
| adjacent (Uber, taxi, etc) such as some activity in the
| suburbs in the morning, cross town in the afternoon, and
| central in the evening.
|
| It's all about working with what you have available, not
| dreaming what could be available - would it be nice if
| there was a train stop half a block from my house that
| just happened to go exactly where I wanted? Sure! Is that
| going to happen? Unlikely, unless I change other things
| in my life to make it so.
|
| Vehicles/cars per capita:
|
| Europe: .56
|
| Japan: .49
|
| USA: .83
|
| Gibraltar: 1.44
| atyppo wrote:
| NY prioritizes this stuff in a way that's great for optics but
| is wasteful, ineffective, and at a snail's pace in practice.
| Construction costs for subways, for example, are about
| $3.5B/mile [1] as of the most recent line built. Corruption is
| rampant in unions, contracts, and consultants. The unions are
| nice enough to demand positions like break room supervisor or
| elevator operator (to press buttons in an elevator), to other
| workers that no auditor or construction professional could
| figure out why they were at the work site, as mentioned in the
| below article. Not to mention a MWBE program that dictates how
| government funds are spent based on race and gender, which
| inflates construction costs further.
|
| Bike lanes and other non-car infrastructure? Good luck using
| them. Between police and other supposed city workers parking
| wherever they want with (often fake) placards to mopeds and
| ebikes going 20+ mph in the wrong direction, biking and walking
| in NYC is simply not the enjoyable experience it ought to be.
| Traffic enforcement might as well not exist - anyone can drive
| around with a paper plate from Texas or drive however they'd
| like because NYPD refuses to enforce traffic laws.
|
| [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-
| subway-...
| cyclecount wrote:
| NY built this bike system in about 10 years:
| https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/nyc-bike-
| map-2022.... It's pretty impressive and works well.
|
| But yes, the Subway is criminally underfunded (it's ran by
| the State of NY actually). Nonetheless, despite how bad NY
| is, it's still the best in the US.
| atyppo wrote:
| Yep, hence my usage of NY when referring to the MTA. With
| regard to the bike network in NYC, many of these are vanity
| projects. Many of the "protected" crosstown bike lanes in
| Midtown for example, have about 4 feet of room. If someone
| in a car decides to fling their door open, you don't have
| many options to avoid it. Many of the other bike lanes are
| not usable in substantial parts, such as Schermerhorn St in
| Brooklyn due to rampant illegal parking. All this is to say
| that NYC DOT is after a number measured by the number of
| miles of bike lane, not by cyclist safety. The only
| "Amsterdam style" bike lane we really, truly have in
| Manhattan is along the rivers which is way beyond
| overcrowded on weekends.
| wouldbecouldbe wrote:
| In Amsterdam a bridge over the water connecting Central Amsterdam
| with the North is always a hot topic, for decades of talking
| about it sill hasn't materialized.
|
| A few serious alternatives that were proposed where tunnels for
| bikes. But they consistently decide not to do it because of
| safety concerns at night.
|
| Which is hopefully a bigger issue in Amsterdam than Bergen.
| AndyMcConachie wrote:
| In Rotterdam they close the Maastunnel to cyclists and
| pedestrians at night. There are also people stationed in it
| during the day at either end. I don't see why Amsterdam
| couldn't do the same.
| loldot wrote:
| The tunnel in Bergen is also closed at night.
| LeonidasXIV wrote:
| A tunnel that you can't use at night makes it significant
| less useful. I really enjoy returning home by bike at night
| when public transport has stopped or is running on
| significantly reduced capacity.
| wartijn_ wrote:
| I wouldn't say significant. The vast majority of cyclists
| will use it mainly (or only) to travel to and from
| offices/schools/universities/shops. A tunnel that's closed
| at night will still be really useful. Especially if the
| alternative is not having a tunnel due to safety concerns.
| wouldbecouldbe wrote:
| if you are going to invest 100's of millions probably
| better to do it right. Current idea is a bridge far away
| from the central station which is even more silly.
| 542354234235 wrote:
| It depends on what you mean by "right". Just because it
| would be "better" to have a tunnel you could use at night
| versus a day only one doesn't mean a day only one
| wouldn't be better than the current situation. If a day
| only tunnel would save money in the long term (due to
| replacing ferries), take pressure off of other modes of
| transport, and increase revenue due to induced demand
| allowing people who may have otherwise not traveled into
| out or out of the city center on a given day choosing to
| because of the tunnel option, then it makes sense. Not
| building it until you could "figure out" how to keep it
| open at night sounds like a "perfect being the enemy of
| good" situation. If 50,000 people per day would use the
| tunnel, not building it because 2,500 people per night
| couldn't use it isn't a good solution.
| vasco wrote:
| I wonder how the cost of one policeman posted there every night
| for 50 years compares to continuing to run 24/7 ferries.
| Specially dilluted on top of the cost of building the tunnel
| itself.
| snovv_crash wrote:
| The ferry needs at least 2 people on it, right?
| Tade0 wrote:
| In suppose it's not a question of money, but the lack people
| willing to take such a position. It's not a glamorous job and
| most have better things to do with their time.
| flurdy wrote:
| CCTVs for a long bridge/tunnel might be enough. As it would
| take quite a while to leave they do not seem like an ideal
| mugging place?
| wouldbecouldbe wrote:
| Drunk people, homeless shelters. It's a choatic area in
| Amsterdam, will attract lots of things and certain people
| don't care about CCTV, hoodie is enough to cover up.
| Police is always understaffed in nights of a weekend so
| they just don't really look forward to a new hotspot they
| need to go and check up on. Just happened last week that
| a friend jumped in between a 16 year old boy being beaten
| up, the police eventually came but left quickly and
| didn't want to call an ambulance because of lack of
| resources, he had to go to the ER himself. Turns out it
| was so bad he needed surgery the next day.
| yakireev wrote:
| Would you take that job for 50k/year? I wouldn't. Would you
| take it for 500k/year? I would. So, it _is_ a question of
| money at the end of the day.
| eythian wrote:
| I saw something in the news today that the gemeente has
| earmarked EUR100m for the bridge, 1/3rd of the total (another
| 100m coming from another source, and the remaining to be
| raised.) Bike tunnels under the IJ apparently (so I recall
| reading, anyway) also have the issue that to have not too steep
| slopes at the end, the entry/exit points will have to be a
| reasonable distance from the water itself.
|
| https://nltimes.nl/2023/04/28/amsterdam-pushing-eu100-millio...
| wouldbecouldbe wrote:
| Yeah the steepness is also a problem, few designs proposed
| had a spiral down from the station, looked pretty cool.
| Others had a sort of bike lift, and indeed others made it
| start between Dam square and Central station.
|
| Btw bridge also deal with steepness issues, since they have
| to be pretty high, and in most cases also have to be able to
| open.
| wouldbecouldbe wrote:
| Haha but yeah they always have some sort of plan. Not long
| ago, maybe 5 years ago, a bicycle bridge was pretty close, I
| created the site where the people living could vote on
| different options of the bridge, but they also needed
| approvement from the national governemnt because it affects
| the water way and they didn't approve:
| https://www.at5.nl/artikelen/207386/javabrug-definitief-
| van-...
|
| It wasn't the best plan anyway, was too far from CS close to
| Pakhuis de Zwager.
|
| But the new plan is even more ridiculous, they want to create
| it at Azartplein now.
|
| But keeps happening. Too many stakeholders, and lack of
| urgency.
| smartbit wrote:
| Other links for those reading Dutch
|
| https://archive.is/p4UJA
|
| https://www.at5.nl/artikelen/220208/amsterdam-zet-
| miljoenen-...
| prmoustache wrote:
| Some people probably think the city look worse because of them
| but there are some really nice cycling+pedestrian bridges in
| Copenhagen.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| There's also the very poorly designed Inderhavnsbro bridge.
| It looks nice enough, but they just made some dumb choices in
| how they've laid it out.
|
| https://www.archdaily.com/868904/copenhagens-latest-piece-
| of...
| wouldbecouldbe wrote:
| The old bridges are about same size, and prettier:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magere_Brug.
|
| However this would be a much larger bridger goes over a
| much larger river that need to support frequent travel of
| large boats.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Ah yes I remember being surprised at those chicanes that
| are so prone to issues between cyclists and pedestrians. I
| took it in not too busy times/days so it was ok in that
| regards but it must really be annoying during rush hours.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Sewer tunnels are 0.1% of the cost of car tunnels, for a wide
| variety of reasons both good and bad.
|
| Elon Musk's The Boring Company is trying to take advantage of
| this to make car tunnels cheaper.
|
| This is a much better idea. Cycling tunnels are much smaller,
| don't need to deal with exhaust, have fewer emergency scenarios,
| ...
| bilqis wrote:
| Petrostate mega projects.
| Faaak wrote:
| Great contribution, thanks !
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| It's good the rest of the world has no tonnels longer than
| _checks notes_ 2 miles?
| ben-schaaf wrote:
| 30 million for a 3 km tunnel; hardly megaproject. Some back of
| the napkin math: That's around .6% of just income tax from
| Bergen; hardly petrostate.
| jtr1 wrote:
| What sort of civil society groups are there advocating for this
| kind of infrastructure in Norway?
|
| I'm always curious how people organize to achieve these outcomes.
| I live in a medium sized city in the US that is badly in need of
| better cycling infrastructure. There are a few organizations
| here, but vision is lacking or has been beaten out of them. I'd
| love to have some sort of organizing / policy toolkit that
| factors in experience from successful campaigns for systems like
| this.
| wunderland wrote:
| The civil society groups and local governments that advocate
| for this sort of thing exist in the US too.
|
| What Norway doesn't have (and much of Europe) is a powerful
| auto lobby that has prevented this sort of infrastructure for
| decades and forced cities to be built in giant suburban
| sprawls.
| jtr1 wrote:
| I'm well aware those groups. I'm asking about solutions here.
| bombcar wrote:
| In my experience in the US, every bike trail/walking trail
| success has been local; a local group in the area that can
| benefit from it, getting support from businesses and people
| in the community and working with the local government.
|
| They sell it as an "option" not as "let's ban all cars"
| which helps people either support or ignore it, instead of
| being _opposed_. Often they work for years, talking to the
| railroads (lots of these are rail conversions, see
| https://www.railstotrails.org/policy/ ), etc. They work on
| plans that slowly take shape (for example, widening
| sidewalks when they're replaced, modifying roads when
| replaced, etc). After 10 to 20 years, it all starts coming
| together.
| 542354234235 wrote:
| There was also a specific path of development that many
| cities took in the mid-20th century that make public transit
| development now very difficult. Carving up downtown areas of
| cities with Parkways/Expressways/Highways, pushed heavily by
| influential urban planner Robert Moses in New York State, and
| copied in many other major US cities, makes it difficult to
| move from one area of a city to another without a car. The
| building of massive, unattractive public housing projects,
| and the hollowing out of urban areas due to redlining and
| "white flight" to the suburbs, now leave huge swaths of urban
| cities with decades of underinvestment. And finally, you have
| the massive suburbs, that take more money to build and
| maintain than they put back in through taxes, which causes a
| parasitic drain on the urban centers funds to spend on
| improved transit that isn't focused on more car
| infrastructure to "keep up" with more and more cars streaming
| in and out from those suburbs.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| In germany, the car industry is way more important and
| powerful then in the US and it was able to prevent the EU ban
| on combustion engines, and yet germany has more walkable
| cities then the US.
| rob74 wrote:
| Only tangentially related, but I'm a bit dissapointed by Google
| Maps: when searching for this tunnel (and the tram line that it
| doubles as an escape tunnel for), all the copyright notices are
| from 2023, but there is no trace of it to be seen. I was
| expecting to at least see the construction works (these things
| usually take years to complete), but nothing. And there's also no
| "transit" layer for Bergen. Gotta do better than that Google if
| you want to be seen as "eco-friendly", offering fuel-saving
| _driving_ alternatives doesn 't quite cut it... Bing Maps is a
| bit better, it shows some early to mid stage construction work -
| it looks like the area of the tunnel mouth has been cleared, and
| an overpass has been constructed for a road, but no tracks to be
| seen anywhere yet. And the imagery is lower-res than Google Maps.
| And no transit layer either...
| sushikokk wrote:
| Here you go, the Fyllingsdalen side of the construction work.
| The opening on the right.
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/@60.3477967,5.2923209,3a,75y,120...
| mngnt wrote:
| OpenStreetMap's got you covered:
| https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/677727136
| rob74 wrote:
| Sure, I was expecting nothing less from OSM's great community
| - now we just need some legal way to put aerial imagery on
| OSM :(
| mngnt wrote:
| We're way off topic now, but well. OSM is insistently not
| focused on a map, but on the data. On this data a lot of
| other mapping projects can (and are being) built. In
| central Europe, we have freemap.sk, which combines OSM
| data, hi-quality aerial imagery - for Slovakia only, these
| were shot by the government and are licensed in a way that
| they can be combined with OSM data - resulting in
| possibilities such as displaying bike paths over super
| detailed aerial maps. Also check out mapy.cz, they are
| based on OSM (outside of Czechia) and in some parts of the
| world can be switched to satellite/aerial imagery with
| roads overlayed over it.
| smikhanov wrote:
| Rotherhithe tunnel in London _screams_ to be repurposed this way
| -- to become "colorfully lit, art-lined" thing where
| psychologists give input on how to make it more welcoming
| Reason077 wrote:
| Yeah, London needs more pedestrian/cycle options to cross the
| Thames - it's a huge barrier in some areas.
|
| For example, a tunnel (or bridge!) between Canary Wharf and the
| Rotherhithe peninsula, replacing the existing passenger ferry,
| would have huge economic benefits by encouraging development of
| a relatively under-developed area.
|
| The Greenwich foot tunnel is a great asset, and despite not
| being very cycle-friendly is very popular with cyclists too.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| To cross the river in East London you have 2 options: the
| Greenwich foot tunnel, or the Woolwich one.
|
| Indeed they're great assets but it's incredibly awful when
| the lifts are broken - and it happens frequently.
|
| Either of them are a huge diversion depending on where you're
| going as well. If there was a cycle-friendly crossing around
| where Blackwall tunnel is, I reckon my rides to The Reach
| would be cut by nearly half.
| bombcar wrote:
| How busy is the river traffic in East London? If it's not
| incredibly busy you'd think some sort of movable bridge
| would be doable.
|
| A permanent structure has to go down really far, or up
| really far, neither of which is that desirable for
| walking/bikes.
| Reason077 wrote:
| It's fairly busy but mostly with river ferries, barges,
| recreational boats, etc which aren't too tall and can fit
| under most bridges. Taking the Tower Bridge example,
| vessels up to 9 metres tall can fit under it. If you're
| taller than that, the bridge must be raised on
| request[1]. I'd imagine that would be the minimum
| requirement for any bridge built east of Tower Bridge.
| Currently the only bridge over the Thames east of Tower
| Bridge is the Dartford Crossing, which has a 61 meter
| high deck.
|
| [1] By law, river traffic takes priority over road
| traffic, but it's raised pretty infrequently now days.
| awestroke wrote:
| I'd be very very surprised if this became reality. There's no
| political force to make actual improvements in London, or in
| the UK as a whole.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| >There's no political force to make actual improvements in
| London, or in the UK as a whole.
|
| "The Youth", so rather tend to make things as colourful -
| sadly, as colourful they may be illegal.
|
| *Banksy excepted.
| awestroke wrote:
| The problem is tories and their voters, not disenfranchised
| youth. Disenfranchised youth is but a symptom
| Ntrails wrote:
| > There's no political force to make actual improvements in
| London, or in the UK as a whole.
|
| HS2 was an attempt at an infrastructure project for the long
| term greater good but quickly devolved into nothing but bad
| news cycles.
|
| Everyone is too busy flinging shit and whipping out
| soundbites to actually do anything, in part because anything
| worthwhile is hard and mistakes are more punishing than not
| trying?
|
| It all just feels so inevitable and I don't understand what
| stops other countries getting into the same spiral of short
| termism
| logifail wrote:
| > HS2 was an attempt at an infrastructure project for the
| long term greater good [..]
|
| Simon Jenkins' 2016 article entitled "HS2: the zombie train
| that refuses to die"[0], is worth reading:
|
| "HS2 was always a project born of political vanity. Like
| several other unstoppable megaprojects, it was not rooted
| in commercial reality or value for money - and it has
| therefore not been halted by accusations that it is not
| needed and not worth the cost"
|
| [0] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-
| news/2016/jun/07/hs2-the-zomb...
| willyt wrote:
| HS2 is somehow insanely expensive and slow moving
| compared to France. We just need to go and look at how
| they do it. The two countries are very close in terms of
| GDP income and regulatory burden. We seem to be very
| inefficient in comparison.
| logifail wrote:
| > HS2 is somehow insanely expensive and slow moving
| compared to France. We just need to go and look at how
| they do it. The two countries are very close in terms of
| GDP income and regulatory burden
|
| They aren't anywhere close to each other in population
| density.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| One of the British national pastimes is to complain about
| the state of the railways and then to complain about
| infrastructure investments in the railways (whic,
| granted, often turn into an omnishamble).
|
| My take-away from HS2 is that the UK is not able to build
| a relatively short high-speed railway. HS2 (so just
| London to Birmingham) is 134 miles/215 km long, that's
| nothing and yet...
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _where psychologists give input on how to make it more
| welcoming_
|
| I'm sure the psychology field is full of pseudo-scientific, un-
| replicable research into what makes something "welcoming"!
| eimrine wrote:
| The most dangerous thing about psychology is not just being
| full of un-replicable reseach but being forced by governments
| as a source of common sense with "doctors" licensed as a real
| doctors. So I feel that minuses in your karma.
|
| Designers can do anything more welcoming by use some special
| colors and shapes though.
| throw7 wrote:
| Same as the economics field no? If more than 2/3 find it
| 'welcoming' than I'd count that as win. Hopefully the
| taxpayers didn't get charged an arm and leg.
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