In Denmark and Germany public transportation is not always that good, they rely heavily on bikes. For instance in Madrid you can rely 100% on a nice, on time, metro system. I hope it’s different in Norway and that they also have public transport that can compete with cars. Of course bikes are good, but not all of us are ready to bike 20-30 mins to work every day in the snow during winter, or hot days during summer.
The tubes are good in Oslo. Runs like clockwork as far as I have seen.
Buses are ok, not always according to schedule but so frequent during the day it hardly matters to me.
Trains are a bit of both:
- most regional ones are brand new
- the other aren't to bad either: old fashioned but clean and well maintained. In fact a number of commuters prefer the older ones.
- they are expensive (if you teamed up with three others you'd finance a Tesla in 10 years I guess. The downside is you can't expect everyone to go to work and home at the exact same time every day or even stay in their job for ten years)
- while they might be reasonably precise for weeks on end it is never a surprise when they are delayed.
- information is poor (my guess is because they have to pay alternative transport if they are more than 30 minutes delayed so they'll try to avoid announcing delays as long as possible. Again this is just my guess.)
- the commuter trains are always crowded in the Oslo area. Sometimes they are so crowded you literally cannot move around. Having seen and read about stadium fires and other disasters involving crowds I wonder how this is even allowed.
> In Denmark and Germany public transportation is not always that good, they rely heavily on bikes
Are you really implying that in these countries many people use bikes because the public transport is not good enough ? In Spain nobody (?) uses bikes because the public transport is perfect ? Do you have sources for both or is this just your very subjective opinion ?
> In Denmark and Germany public transportation is not always that good, they rely heavily on bikes.
I experienced the public transport system in Denmark largely as exceptionally reliable, at least in the cities.
Where have you made different experiences?
The reason many people in copenhagen (and other danish cities, but none comes close to copenhagen) use bikes is that the biking infrastructure is just also exceptional.
For germany the story is indeed different (though just both - public transport and biking infra - are much worse).
> I hope it’s different in Norway and that they also have public transport that can compete with cars.
I know several people living in Oslo even with 3 kids not needing a car. But on the other hand this is only true for Oslo in Norway. Every other city/town public transport sucks. Cars are a must in all other cities.
In the Netherlands people bike in cities because it is convenient and has good infrastructure support, while there still is a pretty good public transport system.
I very highly doubt your narrative that biking somehow is only popular because of insufficient public transport.
I ride the bike all year around, except for some times in the summer precisely because the subways tend to be full in winter.
My commute takes 17min by bike and 26 by subway, due to the stops, during rush hour. The same journey takes well over 50 min with car during that time.
i don’t take the bike over the subway because the subway is bad I take it because it is the fastest way to get there.
It's probably irrelevant how good public transport is. It's more about the higher ups of society that are living in the city center not wanting their space being taken up by the bridge and tunnel crowd.
What bothers me is the hypocrisy of Norway. On the one hand they wage war against cars and fossil fuels domestically. On the other hand they refuse to stop exploring new oil deposits or reduce oil production and exports. They are not bothered with all this oil burnt elsewhere. They are doing very little about that.
That is the right way to do things. If Norway can export oil to India, they should. Not all countries can switch away from oil as easily, and countries should let other countries to switch on their own cost and time.
Rather than it be a 'war' I wish it was a sneaky game of 'musical chairs', reducing a space at a time and turning it over to more sensible use.
For instance, the street I am on is one way and lined with these tin silver box things on either side. A fair bit of the traffic is playing the game of musical chairs, as it is driving round and round looking for a space to park.
If one side was made into a bike lane then that would be a huge bonus to cyclists who should be able to get into town rather than deflected out onto a horrid ring road.
When you count the cars and when you count the bikes being inconvenienced, you wonder how it would work if there was already a bike lane there, used by locals and people on commutes.
Would my neighbours be able to petition the council to close down the bike lane in order for them to park their SUV cars there? Nope, and they would not have the organisational ability to get together to petition the council to close down the bike lane.
As things stand the car owners have squatters rights. So there is no bike lane, just a continual stream of cyclists holding up traffic by riding slowly on the tarmac remaining between the walls of steel each side of the road. Or there are cyclists bombing down the pavement (sidewalk) to piss off pedestrians. All because some people have a god given right to park their SUVs.
So unless there is some revolution the only way to reclaim such space is with a council that sneakily reclaims the spaces. One way this could be done is to mandate more clear road by side junctions for 'safety reasons'. This would benefit motorists as they could see better around the corners. So nobody could object to that. Next, do the same around private drive-ways that join the road, put more double yellow lines down. Then, when there are only a few spots left to park in the council could push the big idea and get a decent cycle lane in so 'kids could safely cycle to school'.
Good for people who find the idea of spending their free time in an ugly concrete jungle enjoyable, bad for everyone else. I would rather cut my salary half than move to a city with more than 200k people.
Returning? The whole concept of a city rests on the idea of more people traveling into it for various reasons than people living in it. People who want to live in a city profit massively from the availability of services that are economically possible due to the extreme density of customers. If you lock out individual travel (and there might be good reasons to do so) you inevitably transform your city into something else that has not existed before. That is not "returning" or "regaining" nor will the space be necessarily "public".
Whatever comes out of these modern transformations might as well leave the city centers economically deserted, or at least less attractive to their current citizen.
While I never understood the urge to live in the cities, I do understand the call for more space and in particular less car traffic from those who do live there. But they also should understand that cities do come with downsides and there is no guarantee that you can have the cake and eat it.
You don't need a car in Oslo though. Provided you weren't planning on going there by car. In fact bringing a car to Oslo is mostly just bringing yourself more trouble. It's not a big city so you can get to almost "anywhere" in Oslo by foot. Or you can take the bus or the tram or the subway, depending on where you are going. Whereas with a car you will struggle to find parking and there are multiple one-way streets in the very center. And also there are toll stations if you go across the boundary between the outer parts of the city and the rest of the world outside of it.
That being said, I don't know you so of course I don't known how important cars and driving is to you. But in general I would recommend not bringing a car to Oslo unless you have a good reason to bring it. Even if you have a lot of luggage you should have no significant problem transporting it on the train from the airport outside of Oslo on the train and then bring it to the hotel or wherever you are staying by jumping on to a bus for example.
Ongoing since last election 4 years ago which gave the Green Party and the left control over the city for the first time in 2 decades. Just visited Oslo the first time in years last week, and the city was so much more enjoyable with less cars on the streets. New election this autumn, fingers crossed.
If you are talking about landlords as in people who own apartment buildings, Norway has had a war on those for decades, primarily via making the interest paid on your mortgage being tax deductible. Even for people below the official poverty line, owning your apartment is cheaper than renting, and there is not really the concept of a subprime mortgage, you get a good interest rate.
To wit, home ownership rate is 83%. The US and the UK are around 65%.
[+] [-] kfk|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eitland|6 years ago|reply
Buses are ok, not always according to schedule but so frequent during the day it hardly matters to me.
Trains are a bit of both:
- most regional ones are brand new
- the other aren't to bad either: old fashioned but clean and well maintained. In fact a number of commuters prefer the older ones.
- they are expensive (if you teamed up with three others you'd finance a Tesla in 10 years I guess. The downside is you can't expect everyone to go to work and home at the exact same time every day or even stay in their job for ten years)
- while they might be reasonably precise for weeks on end it is never a surprise when they are delayed.
- information is poor (my guess is because they have to pay alternative transport if they are more than 30 minutes delayed so they'll try to avoid announcing delays as long as possible. Again this is just my guess.)
- the commuter trains are always crowded in the Oslo area. Sometimes they are so crowded you literally cannot move around. Having seen and read about stadium fires and other disasters involving crowds I wonder how this is even allowed.
[+] [-] Gys|6 years ago|reply
Are you really implying that in these countries many people use bikes because the public transport is not good enough ? In Spain nobody (?) uses bikes because the public transport is perfect ? Do you have sources for both or is this just your very subjective opinion ?
[+] [-] hannob|6 years ago|reply
I experienced the public transport system in Denmark largely as exceptionally reliable, at least in the cities. Where have you made different experiences?
The reason many people in copenhagen (and other danish cities, but none comes close to copenhagen) use bikes is that the biking infrastructure is just also exceptional.
For germany the story is indeed different (though just both - public transport and biking infra - are much worse).
[+] [-] vinni2|6 years ago|reply
I know several people living in Oslo even with 3 kids not needing a car. But on the other hand this is only true for Oslo in Norway. Every other city/town public transport sucks. Cars are a must in all other cities.
[+] [-] dtech|6 years ago|reply
I very highly doubt your narrative that biking somehow is only popular because of insufficient public transport.
[+] [-] atoav|6 years ago|reply
My commute takes 17min by bike and 26 by subway, due to the stops, during rush hour. The same journey takes well over 50 min with car during that time.
i don’t take the bike over the subway because the subway is bad I take it because it is the fastest way to get there.
[+] [-] yostrovs|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vinni2|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dropofwill|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SJetKaran|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomglynch|6 years ago|reply
> Late last year, the government removed some 700 parking spaces from the city centre, replacing them with benches, bicycle docks and more pavement.
Great! The average parking space is 2*6 metres, so they've regained 8,400 sqm of public space!
[+] [-] Theodores|6 years ago|reply
For instance, the street I am on is one way and lined with these tin silver box things on either side. A fair bit of the traffic is playing the game of musical chairs, as it is driving round and round looking for a space to park.
If one side was made into a bike lane then that would be a huge bonus to cyclists who should be able to get into town rather than deflected out onto a horrid ring road.
When you count the cars and when you count the bikes being inconvenienced, you wonder how it would work if there was already a bike lane there, used by locals and people on commutes.
Would my neighbours be able to petition the council to close down the bike lane in order for them to park their SUV cars there? Nope, and they would not have the organisational ability to get together to petition the council to close down the bike lane.
As things stand the car owners have squatters rights. So there is no bike lane, just a continual stream of cyclists holding up traffic by riding slowly on the tarmac remaining between the walls of steel each side of the road. Or there are cyclists bombing down the pavement (sidewalk) to piss off pedestrians. All because some people have a god given right to park their SUVs.
So unless there is some revolution the only way to reclaim such space is with a council that sneakily reclaims the spaces. One way this could be done is to mandate more clear road by side junctions for 'safety reasons'. This would benefit motorists as they could see better around the corners. So nobody could object to that. Next, do the same around private drive-ways that join the road, put more double yellow lines down. Then, when there are only a few spots left to park in the council could push the big idea and get a decent cycle lane in so 'kids could safely cycle to school'.
[+] [-] koodiorja|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] choeger|6 years ago|reply
Whatever comes out of these modern transformations might as well leave the city centers economically deserted, or at least less attractive to their current citizen.
While I never understood the urge to live in the cities, I do understand the call for more space and in particular less car traffic from those who do live there. But they also should understand that cities do come with downsides and there is no guarantee that you can have the cake and eat it.
[+] [-] neonate|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kmlx|6 years ago|reply
> Region’s likely new president Isabel Díaz Ayuso believes congestion is part of city’s cultural identity
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/may/31/madrid-set-to...
you win some, you lose some.
[+] [-] willio58|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] atemerev|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codetrotter|6 years ago|reply
That being said, I don't know you so of course I don't known how important cars and driving is to you. But in general I would recommend not bringing a car to Oslo unless you have a good reason to bring it. Even if you have a lot of luggage you should have no significant problem transporting it on the train from the airport outside of Oslo on the train and then bring it to the hotel or wherever you are staying by jumping on to a bus for example.
[+] [-] truckerbill|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elygre|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mac_was|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kumarvvr|6 years ago|reply
"War on cars" really? Are they banning cars from ever entering the capital?
The whole thing is more like "Govt. is actively discouraging usage of cars"
[+] [-] Thlom|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pjc50|6 years ago|reply
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/2165462/drive...
https://www.fastcompany.com/90294948/what-happened-when-oslo...
[+] [-] spacegod|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] semi-extrinsic|6 years ago|reply
To wit, home ownership rate is 83%. The US and the UK are around 65%.
[+] [-] koala_man|6 years ago|reply