Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway • Hacker News Board

Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#171

Post by cyclecount » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 12:57 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #169

cyclecount wrote: post #166

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.

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…

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).

Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#172

Post by cyclecount » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 12:57 PM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #168

cyclecount wrote: post #166

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.

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.

Some accommodation is nice. It's not enough to not own a car entirely.

Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#173

Post by throw7 » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 1:03 PM UTC

itsoktocry wrote: post #165

smikhanov wrote: post #91

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

> 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"!

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.

Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#174

Post by dsfyu404ed » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 1:06 PM UTC

cyclecount wrote: post #171

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 mentione…

>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.

Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#175

Post by atyppo » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 1:07 PM UTC

cyclecount wrote: post #166

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.

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-...

Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#176

Post by smartbit » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 1:11 PM UTC

eythian wrote: post #80

wouldbecouldbe wrote: post #26

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.

I saw something in the news today that the gemeente has earmarked €100m 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/202…

Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#177

Post by jtr1 » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 1:15 PM UTC

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.

Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#178

Post by cyclecount » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 1:17 PM UTC

atyppo wrote: post #175

cyclecount wrote: post #166

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.

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), t…

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.

Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#179

Post by LeanderK » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 1:18 PM UTC

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #83

dazc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'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 ca…

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 te…

> 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.

Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#180

Post by sgt » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 1:18 PM UTC

Hanschri wrote: post #98

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://…

Imagine if there was a cycling culture like this in the South. Places like Chattanooga with skinny cyclists all over the place.