Comment by willio58 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by willio58 | Hacker News Reader

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> Outside of Oslo the infrastructure is built with car reliance deincentivizing cars and incentivizing walking and bikes won’t make much difference.

To me this reads like "Cars have won, give up on walking and biking in your cities."

That's just not a solution. Just because car lobbyists have successfully ruined nearly all US cities and a good amount of European ones doesn't mean we just sit down and continue to let it happen. I agree public transport is a huge part of the way forward, and I even agree that walking/biking in harsh weather isn't exactly ideal, but we can't let the most simple human ways of existing in cities (walking and biking) go to the wayside just because car companies want us to believe they're bad or unsafe transportation methods. Want to walk in the snow? Put on some boots and wear some layers with a scarf and a hat. Want to walk in the heat? Wear a hat, sunscreen, and a light shirt and pair of shorts. It's not _that_ hard.

Have you been in Norway? The weather can be harsh, the Norwegians are some of the best in dealing with it in the world, but covering large parts of Norway with public transport is difficult.

I used to bike in Bergen, Norway in the winter and it can be really dangerous - I saw many accidents even from the locals.

And Bergen has very mild winter compared to the rest of Norway. Rain on the other hand is a different story...

It simply means that most of Norway (In the area sense, not population) simply is too sparsely populated to support any meaningful form of public transport, and for large parts of the year the weather is sufficiently disagreeable that walking or biking either is out of the question or means getting dressed for the occasion, which adds considerably to the time needed to get somewhere, particularly if kids are involved.

I am sure some advances could be made - say, utilizing smaller buses and perhaps make them go out into the boonies only if someone had notified the bus company that they wished to take the bus - but for the most part, when the population is evenly and thinly distributed over a large-ish area with shoddy weather, the car is king for transport.

Walking in the snow is one thing, walking on ice in -20C/-4F while wind gusts threaten to topple you quite another; that being said, people are quite eager to use bikes whenever the weather is agreeable-ish - it's just that the car is the viable fallback plan when it is not - not public transport.

Norway outside of Oslo is largely very mountainous and not very densely populated . Maybe an e-bike could be a reasonable option during summer but you still have the rest of the year..

> It's not _that_ hard.

Yes it is, for most people given the condition. Implying that they are too lazy etc. it’s just not helpful.

> want us to believe they're bad or unsafe transportation methods

Conspiracy theories are generally not that useful. Cars are objectively the superior method of transport in low density areas (there is no use in denying that)

> To me this reads like "Cars have won, give up on walking and biking in your cities."

Please consider that not everyone lives in a city with all amenities at walking distance. The countryside exists. We should not abandon those living there.

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