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Europe’s Longest Bicycling Tunnel Opens in Norway

276 points by imartin2k 3y ago

biomene 3y ago
It's the escape tunnel for a tram tunnel with an extra coat of paint: https://www.lifeinnorway.net/bergen-cycle-tunnel/ https://www.lifeinnorway.net/bergen-cycle-tunnel/
- cjrp 3y ago
  > 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.
  - sweettea 3y ago
    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 3y ago
      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 3y ago
        And net reduced road maintenance and external costs coming for reduced car usage
      - cjrp 3y ago
        And a healthier society (on the whole) as people are encouraged to cycle. Less diabetes, etc.
        ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
        And a happier society as it's far more fun to cycle than to drive in traffic
    - k4rli 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - patall 3y ago
        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 3y ago
        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 3y ago
        > 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 3y ago
        Ideologues everywhere use statistics as a pretext for their lies. Water is wet. More breaking news at 11.
        goodpoint 3y ago
        You are missing the point completely.
    - aziaziazi 3y ago
      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 3y ago
        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).
        DeathArrow 3y ago
        So there are places in Europe where it rains more than in UK?
        wartijn_ 3y ago
        Yes. Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Albania. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_annual_precipitation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_a...
        arethuza 3y ago
        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 3y ago
        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.
    - goodpoint 3y ago
      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.
  - InCityDreams 3y ago
    Let's assume the saving of one life....
    - rhn_mk1 3y ago
      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/ 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 3y ago
        300 users a day sounds improbably low for an urban route.
  - mytailorisrich 3y ago
    > $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.
  - ubercore 3y ago
    And avoid 20 minutes of getting soaked in Bergen, also a plus.
  - altacc 3y ago
    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.
- skrebbel 3y ago
  Smart move!
- rob74 3y ago
  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").
  - usrusr 3y ago
    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.
  - doikor 3y ago
    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.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    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".
- Technotroll 3y ago
  The tram line in Bergen was discontinued in 1965. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergen_Tramway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergen_Tramway
  - lb1lf 3y ago
    -This would be an escape tunnel for the Bybanen, a light railway more comparable to the S-Bahn than a tram as such.
tmilard 3y ago
Bergen is a wonderfully city. I remember. I lived at a families place in my 20s. So nice. It doesn't surprise me.
- kevsim 3y ago
  Just be sure to bring a raincoat
  - tgv 3y ago
    A colleague of mine applied to the university of Bergen. At the interview, they gave him a promotional gift: an umbrella.
    - lb1lf 3y ago
      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 3y ago
        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.
CrampusDestrus 3y ago
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
- mkoubaa 3y ago
  Not sure about structurally but in terms of ventilation I think this is right
- substation13 3y ago
  I believe that road wear is proportional to mass ^ 4
- thecopy 3y ago
  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 3y ago
  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,79.74h,80.05t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s3yW8e_zl1grRSdbOxeGojA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@47.597616,-122.3297804,3a,75y,7...)
  - gns24 3y ago
    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.
vidarh 3y ago
One of the articles linked at the bottom of the article includes a video: https://www.bicycling.com/news/a43249948/longest-cycle-tunnel-in-the-world/ 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-cycling-tunnel/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/worlds-longest-cyclin...
- frumiousirc 3y ago
  And, of course, there is a car parked in the bike lane blocking the entrance to the tunnel (very start of the video).
  - eajakobsen 3y ago
    To be fair this video was recorded before the tunnel officially opened.
trabant00 3y ago
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?
- aziaziazi 3y ago
  Where did you see people vilifying cars at the time of your post ?
- Tade0 3y ago
  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 3y ago
    > 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.
    - 3y ago
bilqis 3y ago
Petrostate mega projects.
- Faaak 3y ago
  Great contribution, thanks !
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago
  It's good the rest of the world has no tonnels longer than checks notes 2 miles?
- ben-schaaf 3y ago
  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.
  - bilqis 3y ago
    I’m not talking only about this specific tunnel. Norway spends quite a number of their petro dollars to make tunnels in the middle of nowhere to another middle id nowhere.
wouldbecouldbe 3y ago
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.
- vasco 3y ago
  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.
  - Tade0 3y ago
    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 3y ago
      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 3y ago
        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.
    - 3y ago
vrglvrglvrgl 3y ago
[dead]
rob74 3y ago
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...
- mngnt 3y ago
  OpenStreetMap's got you covered: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/677727136 https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/677727136
  - rob74 3y ago
    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 3y ago
      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.
- sushikokk 3y ago
  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,120.3h,78.69t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1ssQFKZc1ihYmC16ZKsH7ppA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@60.3477967,5.2923209,3a,75y,120...
jwr 3y ago
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 3y ago
  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 3y ago
  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.
DonHopkins 3y ago
>Halfway through, a sundial shows the time. I'd love to know how that works in a tunnel!
- DonHopkins 3y ago
  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-longest-purpose-built-bike-tunnel-to-open-in-norway/ https://bicyclenetwork.com.au/newsroom/2023/03/30/worlds-lon... https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-worlds-longest-purpose-built-cycling-tunnel-just-opened-in-norway-180982029/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-worlds-longest... https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/worlds-longest-cycling-tunnel/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/worlds-longest-cyclin...
  - proto_lambda 3y ago
    So it's an art installation reminiscent of a sundial, not an actual sundial.
h1fra 3y ago
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
smikhanov 3y ago
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 3y ago
  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 3y ago
    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 3y ago
      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 3y ago
        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.
okamiueru 3y ago
[flagged]
Hanschri 3y ago
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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42q15E2YE8Y [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udF0IXB2FZA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udF0IXB2FZA
- sgt 3y ago
  Imagine if there was a cycling culture like this in the South. Places like Chattanooga with skinny cyclists all over the place.
  - Jedd 3y ago
    > ... 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 3y ago
      I suspect he means the southern parts of the US. (Which are the most car oriented states, IIRC)
    - sgt 3y ago
      I meant the USA
  - AtlasBarfed 3y ago
    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.
kristofferR 3y ago
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.
bryanlarsen 3y ago
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, ...
cyclecount 3y ago
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 3y ago
  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 3y ago
    Some accommodation is nice. It's not enough to not own a car entirely.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      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-and-abilities-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 3y ago
  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.
jtr1 3y ago
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 3y ago
  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.
  - amadeuspagel 3y ago
    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.
  - jtr1 3y ago
    I’m well aware those groups. I’m asking about solutions here.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      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/ 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.
philip1209 3y ago
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 3y ago
  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/ https://www.nbim.no/en/
- atombender 3y ago
  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_okonomi/bruk-av-oljepenger-/hvor-mye-oljepenger-bruker-vi/id450461/ https://www.regjeringen.no/no/tema/okonomi-og-budsjett/norsk...
bigpeopleareold 3y ago
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 :)
AtlasBarfed 3y ago
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.
stainablesteel 3y ago
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
deafpolygon 3y ago
Sometimes I wonder why the Dutch hasn't done this yet. But then I remember, it's entirely flat here.
davegri 3y ago
I find it genuinely hilarious that we need to consult with a psychologist to create a place with a comforting atmosphere. As if what makes a place feel nice and comfortable is some kind of theoretical knowledge we just don't have access too. It's a miracle we regular old people avoid creating horrible and uncomfortable living spaces for ourselves.

276 points by imartin2k 3y ago

It's the escape tunnel for a tram tunnel with an extra coat of paint: https://www.lifeinnorway.net/bergen-cycle-tunnel/ https://www.lifeinnorway.net/bergen-cycle-tunnel/

cjrp 3y ago
> 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.
- sweettea 3y ago
  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 3y ago
    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 3y ago
      And net reduced road maintenance and external costs coming for reduced car usage
    - cjrp 3y ago
      And a healthier society (on the whole) as people are encouraged to cycle. Less diabetes, etc.
      - ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
        And a happier society as it's far more fun to cycle than to drive in traffic
  - k4rli 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - patall 3y ago
      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 3y ago
      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 3y ago
        > 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 3y ago
        Ideologues everywhere use statistics as a pretext for their lies. Water is wet. More breaking news at 11.
        goodpoint 3y ago
        You are missing the point completely.
  - aziaziazi 3y ago
    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 3y ago
      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).
      - DeathArrow 3y ago
        So there are places in Europe where it rains more than in UK?
        wartijn_ 3y ago
        Yes. Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Albania. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_annual_precipitation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_a...
        arethuza 3y ago
        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 3y ago
        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.
  - goodpoint 3y ago
    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.
- InCityDreams 3y ago
  Let's assume the saving of one life....
  - rhn_mk1 3y ago
    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/ 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 3y ago
      300 users a day sounds improbably low for an urban route.
- mytailorisrich 3y ago
  > $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.
- ubercore 3y ago
  And avoid 20 minutes of getting soaked in Bergen, also a plus.
- altacc 3y ago
  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.
skrebbel 3y ago
Smart move!
rob74 3y ago
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").
- usrusr 3y ago
  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.
- doikor 3y ago
  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.
- bombcar 3y ago
  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".
Technotroll 3y ago
The tram line in Bergen was discontinued in 1965. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergen_Tramway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergen_Tramway
- lb1lf 3y ago
  -This would be an escape tunnel for the Bybanen, a light railway more comparable to the S-Bahn than a tram as such.

tmilard 3y ago

Bergen is a wonderfully city. I remember. I lived at a families place in my 20s. So nice. It doesn't surprise me.

kevsim 3y ago
Just be sure to bring a raincoat
- tgv 3y ago
  A colleague of mine applied to the university of Bergen. At the interview, they gave him a promotional gift: an umbrella.
  - lb1lf 3y ago
    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 3y ago
      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.

CrampusDestrus 3y ago

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

mkoubaa 3y ago
Not sure about structurally but in terms of ventilation I think this is right
substation13 3y ago
I believe that road wear is proportional to mass ^ 4
thecopy 3y ago
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 3y ago
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,79.74h,80.05t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s3yW8e_zl1grRSdbOxeGojA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@47.597616,-122.3297804,3a,75y,7...)
- gns24 3y ago
  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.

vidarh 3y ago

One of the articles linked at the bottom of the article includes a video: https://www.bicycling.com/news/a43249948/longest-cycle-tunnel-in-the-world/ 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-cycling-tunnel/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/worlds-longest-cyclin...

frumiousirc 3y ago
And, of course, there is a car parked in the bike lane blocking the entrance to the tunnel (very start of the video).
- eajakobsen 3y ago
  To be fair this video was recorded before the tunnel officially opened.

trabant00 3y ago

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?

aziaziazi 3y ago
Where did you see people vilifying cars at the time of your post ?
Tade0 3y ago
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 3y ago
  > 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.
  - 3y ago

bilqis 3y ago

Petrostate mega projects.

Faaak 3y ago
Great contribution, thanks !
ClumsyPilot 3y ago
It's good the rest of the world has no tonnels longer than checks notes 2 miles?
ben-schaaf 3y ago
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.
- bilqis 3y ago
  I’m not talking only about this specific tunnel. Norway spends quite a number of their petro dollars to make tunnels in the middle of nowhere to another middle id nowhere.

wouldbecouldbe 3y ago

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.

vasco 3y ago
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.
- Tade0 3y ago
  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 3y ago
    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 3y ago
      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.
  - 3y ago

vrglvrglvrgl 3y ago

[dead]

rob74 3y ago

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...

mngnt 3y ago
OpenStreetMap's got you covered: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/677727136 https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/677727136
- rob74 3y ago
  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 3y ago
    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.
sushikokk 3y ago
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,120.3h,78.69t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1ssQFKZc1ihYmC16ZKsH7ppA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@60.3477967,5.2923209,3a,75y,120...

jwr 3y ago

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 3y ago
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 3y ago
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.

DonHopkins 3y ago

>Halfway through, a sundial shows the time. I'd love to know how that works in a tunnel!

DonHopkins 3y ago
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-longest-purpose-built-bike-tunnel-to-open-in-norway/ https://bicyclenetwork.com.au/newsroom/2023/03/30/worlds-lon... https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-worlds-longest-purpose-built-cycling-tunnel-just-opened-in-norway-180982029/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-worlds-longest... https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/worlds-longest-cycling-tunnel/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/worlds-longest-cyclin...
- proto_lambda 3y ago
  So it's an art installation reminiscent of a sundial, not an actual sundial.

h1fra 3y ago

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

smikhanov 3y ago

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 3y ago
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 3y ago
  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 3y ago
    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 3y ago
      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.

okamiueru 3y ago

[flagged]

Hanschri 3y ago

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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42q15E2YE8Y [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udF0IXB2FZA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udF0IXB2FZA

sgt 3y ago
Imagine if there was a cycling culture like this in the South. Places like Chattanooga with skinny cyclists all over the place.
- Jedd 3y ago
  > ... 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 3y ago
    I suspect he means the southern parts of the US. (Which are the most car oriented states, IIRC)
  - sgt 3y ago
    I meant the USA
- AtlasBarfed 3y ago
  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.

kristofferR 3y ago

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.

bryanlarsen 3y ago

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, ...

cyclecount 3y ago

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 3y ago
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 3y ago
  Some accommodation is nice. It's not enough to not own a car entirely.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    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-and-abilities-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 3y ago
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.

jtr1 3y ago

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 3y ago
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.
- amadeuspagel 3y ago
  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.
- jtr1 3y ago
  I’m well aware those groups. I’m asking about solutions here.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    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/ 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.

philip1209 3y ago

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 3y ago
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/ https://www.nbim.no/en/
atombender 3y ago
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_okonomi/bruk-av-oljepenger-/hvor-mye-oljepenger-bruker-vi/id450461/ https://www.regjeringen.no/no/tema/okonomi-og-budsjett/norsk...

bigpeopleareold 3y ago

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 :)

AtlasBarfed 3y ago

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.

stainablesteel 3y ago

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

deafpolygon 3y ago

Sometimes I wonder why the Dutch hasn't done this yet. But then I remember, it's entirely flat here.

davegri 3y ago

I find it genuinely hilarious that we need to consult with a psychologist to create a place with a comforting atmosphere. As if what makes a place feel nice and comfortable is some kind of theoretical knowledge we just don't have access too. It's a miracle we regular old people avoid creating horrible and uncomfortable living spaces for ourselves.