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Comment by cjrp | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

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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.

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.

And net reduced road maintenance and external costs coming for reduced car usage

And a healthier society (on the whole) as people are encouraged to cycle. Less diabetes, etc.

And a happier society as it's far more fun to cycle than to drive in traffic

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.

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).

So there are places in Europe where it rains more than in UK?

Yes. Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Albania.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_a...

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).

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.

Welcome to western Norway. Bring a raincoat!

Not just a raincoat, I've had snow, sunny summer, storm gusts, hail and rain on the same day just this week, I'm int he SW though not entirely west.

I remember one time a few years back when I lived in Stavanger, I went to the post office in the city center there in a bright nice summer day and came out to torrential rain and rivers in the street!

I'm in Stavanger as well. The weather is pretty interesting here.

yes: https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/average-annu...

Bergen is one such place funnily enough.

Luckily it doesn't rain (or snow) inside of tunnels.

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.

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.

> $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.

And avoid 20 minutes of getting soaked in Bergen, also a plus.

Let's assume the saving of one life....

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/, 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.

300 users a day sounds improbably low for an urban route.

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