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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

#231

Post by bombcar »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #186
cyclecount wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

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…

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

Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#232

Post by awestroke »

InCityDreams wrote: post #147
awestroke wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>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.

The problem is tories and their voters, not disenfranchised youth. Disenfranchised youth is but a symptom

Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#233

Post by pi-rat »

Jedd wrote: post #196
sgt wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> ... 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.

I suspect he means the southern parts of the US.

(Which are the most car oriented states, IIRC)

Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#234

Post by Reason077 »

bombcar wrote: post #225
cassianoleal wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#235

Post by sgt »

Jedd wrote: post #196
sgt wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> ... 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.

I meant the USA

Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#236

Post by logifail »

willyt wrote: post #220
logifail wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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.

Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#237

Post by seattle_spring »

ghaff wrote: post #66
gns24 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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."

> "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.

Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#238

Post by seattle_spring »

bombcar wrote: post #224
goodpoint wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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.

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.

Re: Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

#240

Post by wouldbecouldbe »

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...

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.

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