this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
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Some nations that experience harsh winters have well maintained bicycle infrastructure year round. Access to effecient, maintained, and safe bicycle infrastructure is the biggest factor preventing or enabling cycling.
Biking in sub-zero temperatures when it isn't even safe to be exposed outside for more than a few minutes (also happens here in the winter) is not a good idea either.
Again, I am all about bikes. I think bikes should be widely adopted. I would also never ride one in winter conditions here no matter how well the infrastructure is maintained. Have you ever seen a road plowed after there's been a huge snowfall? Keeping a bike lane clear is not especially reasonable an expectation for a snowplow.
https://youtu.be/Uhx-26GfCBU?si=xm6kjWjVBJnN-iz_
Most bike lanes get a differnet treatment creating a tightly packed snow surface to pedal on.
Safe bicycle infrastructure does not equal bicycle gutters. Bicycle gutters are unsafe on most roads even in the summer and were designed without winter maintaince as a consideration.
Skipping through the video, those look like roads dedicated to bicycles. Unless you repurpose an entire city to be bicycle only, which is a very unlikely scenario in most places in this world with harsh winters, that really doesn't apply to the way snowplows usually work.
"Roads dedicated to bicycles"
What do you think good, safe and dedicated bicycle infrastructure looks like? Cars and bicycles has vastly different needs and therefore should have differently built roadways.
When your city repaves its 4-6 lane roads, it has the choice to change some of those car lanes to bicycle/pedestrian/multiuse paths.
How do you think you build a good, safe and dedicated bicycle infrastructure in a city which has not been designed for it? There are roads here, like the one where my office is, that only have one access route. How do even get the delivery trucks in if you make that only road bike-only? And if you say "just build another road," who is going to pay for that?
Also, almost every road here has two lanes, one in each direction.
No bike friendly city, and very few advocates for them, are suggesting to ban motor vehicles entirely. Rather, we can structure infrastrucrue to serve both, instead of just cars.
A 4 lane stroad can be turned into a two lane, limited access road with protected, separated bike lane and a median. This actually improves auto throughput, travel times, and emissions.
A 2 lane residential street can have restricted parking, narrower right of way, and wide rsidewalks. This naturally slows cars, making shared right of way safer for all.
A pedestrian zone can have moveable bollards, so that deliveries and mobility services can still access, whil keeping the street safe for people.
In all these cases, its not about bulldozing buildings, its about changing the way we use existing land.
The Netherlands did it. Just change construction requirements/guidelines, zoning, etc, get some biking activists, and wait 50 years. All of these problems have already been solved.
And to answer your specific question, I think they normally close off roads to regular cars but let delivery vehicles go through. In the short amount of time the vehicle is there, people just bike/walk around it. And they also make smaller delivery vehicles, including branded cargo bikes for when the situation fits.
Because we all know cities are usually able to plan things 50 years in advance...
No. Because infrastructure needs to be replaced every so often and after 50 years you’ll have gone through most of it. 50 years ago is around when the Netherlands switched from building car infrastructure to also building bike infrastructure.
It's funny how many of the same people making this sort of argument would happily go skiing in the exact same weather.
I sure as hell wouldn't go skiing when it's -30 and they say it's unsafe to be outside.
This is just conjecture.
Such a bike-only city just have to build heated underground tunnels for biking. If a New York subway style bike highway isn't good enough., since wind chill and all that, instead build a city-wide roof over the first floor of all the buildings in the city to basically make that first floor a basement.
This is obviously an extreme answer, but if a city wanted to be bike-only, the only barrier is cost.
no city wants to do that, but they could. Stick Solar panels on the first floor roof and do the solar freaking roadways idea to heat up the tiles and avoid plowing (without needing to make them car-proof.)
I got myself all excited, I wish this was more than a modern fantasy.
The problem with this idea is that melting snow takes a ridiculous amount of energy. (and also no one wants to feel banished underground)
Again, these problems have already been solved. Compress the snow on bike paths, and make a reliable public transport system for when its really too cold.
Cost is a pretty huge barrier. Money doesn't grow on trees.
Bike lanes cost less than car lanes. Bike-path-sized snowplows probably cost less than car-lane-sized ones, too.
Bike infrastructure only seems unaffordable for those who dishonestly see it as an add-on on top of car infrastructure, rather than correctly as a replacement for (some of) it.
Well sure, bike infrastructure is cheap if you take a road for cars, ban all cars, and declare it bike only.
But that's so ridiculous it's not worth mentioning.