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Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

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Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#211

Post by AtlasBarfed »

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.

Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#212

Post by 542354234235 »

wouldbecouldbe wrote: post #148
wartijn_ wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#213

Post by AtlasBarfed »

sgt wrote: post #180
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.

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.

Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#214

Post by prmoustache »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #208
prmoustache wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people probably think the city look worse because of them but there are some really nice cycling+pedestrian bridges in Copenhagen.

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...

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.

Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#215

Post by Glawen »

Macha wrote: post #193
Glawen wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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…

> 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".

Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#216

Post by detrites »

earthnail wrote: post #108
ghaff wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

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 pedestria…

Sounds good to me, ship it.

Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#217

Post by arethuza »

liotier wrote: post #205
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://…

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 C…

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...

Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#218

Post by bombcar »

liotier wrote: post #205
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://…

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 C…

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.

Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#220

Post by willyt »

logifail wrote: post #154
Ntrails wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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…

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.
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