Oslo made its city center basically car-free

Re:Oslo made its city center basically car-free by gilrim on Friday January 25, 2019 @02:27PM (#19001512)

Not true. Lots of people bike in Oslo during the winter. While the numbers are lower in winter, saying that very few do is plainly wrong. Cargo bikes as well as trailers for kids are popular among families with children, see them all over the place. The city bike system are testing winter bikes and so far it been a success. The changes that are being implement take time, but overall the last few years the city have made great strides.

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Re:Oslo made its city center basically car-free by eisa01 on Friday January 25, 2019 @03:30PM (#19002197)

Eyeballing some monthly graphs on [1] it seems to be 5-15% of peak traffic, I would call that few. Also, the city bikes don't operate during winter, which I can completely understand

[1] http://www.eco-public.com/ParcPublic/?id=3936#

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Re:Oslo made its city center basically car-free by dbdjfjrjvebd on Friday January 25, 2019 @02:47PM (#19001754)

Virtually no one bikes here in the winter.

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Re:Oslo made its city center basically car-free by anyfoo on Friday January 25, 2019 @03:26PM (#19002157)

As I said, definitely a lot of bikes in Munich in winter, but temperatures also rarely drop below -10°C or so (although there were some extremely exceptional winters in the last few years where it happened). Maybe that's different in Oslo.

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Re:Oslo made its city center basically car-free by dbdjfjrjvebd on Friday January 25, 2019 @03:28PM (#19002175)

Temperatures here are rarely under -5 but rarely above 0. The key is that they hover just below zero and the ice stays on the ground.

Ice is very different to snow to cycle on.

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Re:Oslo made its city center basically car-free by anyfoo on Friday January 25, 2019 @03:37PM (#19002269)

Does the city not put road grit onto the bike paths in Oslo? They certainly do in Munich.

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Re:Oslo made its city center basically car-free by magicalhippo on Friday January 25, 2019 @04:18PM (#19002562)

Road grid does little when there's several cm of snow on top of the ice. It's a very slippery combination.

During winter the sidewalks rarely get the snow removed. So unless there's dedicated bike lanes, which there are still rather few of, you'd have to bike in the middle of the road. Which, due to the topography, would mostly mean holding up the traffic big time.

Here are some news articles from last winter which contains some illustrative pictures: https://www.aftenposten.no/norge/i/m60VB0/Mer-sno-i-vente-pa... https://www.aftenposten.no/osloby/i/ka3kLj/Oslo-vinteren-har...

Of course it's not always that bad, but it's usually not a whole lot better either for most of the winter.

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Re:Oslo made its city center basically car-free by anyfoo on Friday January 25, 2019 @08:26PM (#19004119)

Yes, the difference seems to be that Munich has lots of bike paths.

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Re:Oslo made its city center basically car-free by magicalhippo on Friday January 25, 2019 @08:33PM (#19004153)

They're building more here tho, so unless we get a shift in power next year (local elections), the situation should be much better in a few years time.

They've also said they'll focus keeping the bike roads clear during winter, currently a big issue for myself.

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Re:Oslo made its city center basically car-free by dbdjfjrjvebd on Saturday January 26, 2019 @01:56AM (#19005216)

Between this and the property tax I can't see the current local government holding onto power.

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Re:Oslo made its city center basically car-free by dbdjfjrjvebd on Friday January 25, 2019 @03:46PM (#19002335)

They are not many bike paths. For example there are non on my commute.

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Re:Oslo made its city center basically car-free by anyfoo on Friday January 25, 2019 @03:50PM (#19002369)

Ah, that's the major difference then, I guess.

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