City of Oslo, Norway to sponsor ebikes

[LockH]

... maybe.

For the newly elected city government of Oslo, biking is a priority. They want to build a lot of new bike-lanes and make Oslo City Centre free of cars. To increase electric bike use the politicians have even said they will even sponsor people who buy an e-bike. However they have not yet explained how this should be arranged.

Seen here:
http://www.bike-eu.com/sales-trends/nieuws/2016/2/steady-bike-market-in-norway-10125679

8)

 

[Eskimo]

Norwegians always do it better. They have more common sense than we here east from them. They always do all the right moves at the right time.

 

[LockH]

How to make the ebike more "practical" (fun): "Norway Will Spend Almost $1 Billion on New Bike Highways"
http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2016/03/norway-bike-highways-billion-dollars/472059/

What the new paths will do is create bike commuter links between inner cities and outer suburbs, extending the protected cycle network out from urban cores through the commuter belt and into the countryside beyond.

 

[macribs]

How to make the ebike more "practical" (fun): "Norway Will Spend Almost $1 Billion on New Bike Highways"
http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2016/03/norway-bike-highways-billion-dollars/472059/

What the new paths will do is create bike commuter links between inner cities and outer suburbs, extending the protected cycle network out from urban cores through the commuter belt and into the countryside beyond.

Yeah sorry to say it but the idea for bike-highways was not developed here in Norway. The idea is from Denmark, and Denmark has also put the idea to work in several big cities. So our idea of bike highways was founded on the great experiences Denmark did when they started to give bicycles better infrastructure.

Even if norway is a small country with only 5 million people we are already struggling with smog issues from cars and trucks as well as wood burning fireplaces used to heat up peoples homes. Pollution is so high especially on cold winter days with little wind that old people, people with lung problems such as COPD or people with heart issues are told to keep indoors on those days to avoid health issues.

The bike-highways are a way of trying to avoid the yearly growth of automobiles and semi-trucks clogging our streets and making rush hours crazy with standstill traffic. If more people would commute using bicycles or even e-bikes to work the benefits of cleaner air would easily be harvested by all of us.

Initial costs of such a grand build of bike-highways are high, but if we can make many people switch their everyday car use for clean bike/e-bike maybe we can save a little on the long term of keeping our highways up to date. Our cold climate, harsh winters and rainy summers takes it tolls on our roads and the traffic is increasing like crazy year for year putting even more stress on our already crowded roads.

We don't have that many big cities in norway, so to reap the benefits of cleaner air it does not take a whole lot of people switching to bike/e-bike before we can have less pollution and less fatigue on our roads. Hopefully.

 

[LockH]

Hiya macribs. Hey. At least Norwegians could recognize a good thing and run with it. Many/most in North America are still stuck in the age of the motorized horseless carriage running by burning fossil fuels. [sigh]

(`Kay. Maybe an appreciation of furniture from Scandinavia. At least folks in my family inherited the "Viking Disease" - Dupuytren's Contracture. Hehe)

And not sure, but perhaps Denmark picked up this infrastructure thingee from the Netherlands?

Lessee... "automobiles and semi-trucks clogging our streets". Got that. Check. "rush hours crazy with standstill traffic". Check. (Hehe... Rush HOUR. I wish. More like all day long.)

So YES. "If more people would commute using e-bikes or even bicycles" (mighta got that backwards. Hehe

"Initial costs of such a grand build of bike-highways are high"? HA. We could take that out of our highway repair budgets and not really notice.

We could save A LOT on annual road repair bills.

YOUR "cold" climate??? HA. Got you beat. We're all over the map here though. We got wet coast folks cuddling the same warm ocean currents (OK. Not the same one. But... East Coast? More warm ocean currents.) And mid-country folks cuddling up to our "Great Lakes" (over six million poop in every day. Keeps the water temps warmer).

At least you folks get to shoot while yer skiing, granted. (Hehe)

We can maybe move this thread over to the forum that tapps about the latest in electric snow machines.