Watch out! Norwegian roads will shread your tyres!!

There is one thing which has been bothering me ever since I started driving in Bergen in 2009 - it's the quality of the Norwegian roads.

They are just so horrible. There is no other word to describe the roads here. They are full of unexpected pothholes, huge cracks and uneven surfaces that you run the risk of seriously damaging your car should you drive into them at high speed.

The hole in Kanalveien - drive into one and win a new tyre!
(You'll have to pay for it yourself)

Norway is a wealthy country thanks to all the oil money - yet, they are not spending nearly as enough money on maintaining their roads. As a result, the road quality in some cases, are comparible to what I saw in Russia - a disgrace for a country that has a higher Per Capita Income than the United States!

Mind you, the Norwegian bridges and tunnels are spectacular, since the country has a long coastline with lots of islands in the fjords. Some of those bridges and tunnels are actually amazing to drive through.

But the roads! Look at the photo on the right; It is Kanalveien in Bergen. The hole in the picture measures about 10 inches wide, 8 inches long, and 3 inches deep. Its not a big hole, but if you drive into one at 50km/h you will blow your tyre for sure.



These are not the craters of the moon, but you need a moon
buggy if you want to drive over them in comfort

The second photo is in a residential street. Actually, you will find such roads in many residential areas around Norway.

Nothing seems to be done about them, and the holes only get bigger and bigger...until they spread so much that you end up with one gigantic hole which will suck up your entire car.

The holes in the third photo gets mended about once or twice a year, but the job is so poorly done that within a couple of months of reparation, the holes reappear, bigger than ever.

This same hole has been mended many times, but they just
keep reappearing

In many developed countries, if the road workers did such a shoddy job of reparing roads, they will be fired on the spot. It must be only in Norway that they get away with it.




This cobblestone road has certainly seen better days. Now, it
looks like a moon landscape

Check out the picture on the bottom; its taken by an old church close to the Bergen city centre. It doesn't show well in the pictures, but the bumps are so big that driving over them in a regular passenger car you would actually risk damaging the bottom. I have actually seen many cars scraping the bottom on this road.

The most suitable vehicle here would be the moon buggy from the Apollo missions. I'm being serious here...


Do you have any examples of bad roads in your neighbourhood? What is your local government doing (or not doing) about them? Let me know!

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University of Bergen wasting valuable parking spaces

For over a year now, parking spaces for the Univeristy of Bergen stands empty.

The site of the former student parking. For over a year, this
site has remained empty for no reason!!

Until the begining of 2011, students were assigned their own parking spaces at the two parking lots belonging to the University of Bergen.

The total capacity was around 30 cars, which was not much to begin with, but all of a sudden, one of the parking spaces located adjacent to the university building was closed down for no apparent reason. People thought maybe the university plans to build something there, even though the space was just enough for about 16 cars... The sign indicating "student parking" has been replaced by a "parking forbidden" sign threatning the car drivers that their vehicle will be towed away if they parked there.

Now, over a year has elapsed, and the place is still empty!! All there is are just some tiles dumped on the ground...that's it! This is outrageous, since there was not enough parking spaces to begin with, and if anything, since the number of students at the university are increasing, so should the parking capacity.

The space provided parking for 4 or 5 cars. Now, it is just closed
down with chain and lock. What is the matter with these people?

Now look at the other side of the same parking lot. A space which provided additional parking for students and staff is also closed down for no reason whatsoever. Over here, the University went as far as to place concrete blocks connected with chains and locks to stop people from parking there.

Since the space is not being used for anything, what is the problem with people parking there?

In the background of the picture on the right, you will see another parking lot. This lot normally holds around 40 cars, but because of some construction work, the capacity has been reduced by about 1/4. The competition for a spot in one of these parking lots is fierce. Normally, by 8am on a weekday, all the spots are already taken. You would normally have to wait until around 1pm to find a spot.



If people park in an "empty space", then
they get one of these. Click on the image
to enlarge!

So in total, the university is forcing 30 cars (more actually, since not all the cars are parked the entire day) every day to park at a paying parking spot. It is just a waste of money for the students and staff. What is the university directors thinking?? Wasting valuable parking space in the city centre...

The picture on the right, I discovered under the windscreen wiper of one of the cars parked in the parking lot (not my car). As it happens, the university is not utilising all the spaces in the parking lot either, and anybody who (righteously) tries to park there now gets a 500 NOK (approx. US$90) fine. Since when did the university become a parking company!? Last time I checked, the university is a place which offers a place of higher education, not a place where people get fined for parking in a spot that was rightfully theirs until a year ago.

Take note on the photo; on the place where it says "bilmerke" (car make, in Norwegian), the warden wrote "Polo"! What jackass!! The make of the car is Volkswagen. The model of the car is Polo. It does not matter to this poor owner of the car though...

I wonder if this is just a symbolic thing, or is there actually a legal obligation to pay the fine?

Update 4th October 2012

Now, the spaces have been further reduced by about 8 cars because of some ridiculous construction work that nobody has asked for. On top of that, the university didn't bother to replace those lost spaces! What are they thinking? At least remove the chain & locks from the parking space in the second picture, at the same time making good use of the parking spaces shown in the pictures on the top! It's not like its going to hurt anybody...

Update 16th November 2012
The space has been further reduced! Actually, it hasn't, but....around 8 spaces has been converted into charging areas for electric cars. Now, conventional cars are not allowed to park in those places, only cars with licence plates starting with "EL" (indicates that the car is electric). I have seen cars from Poland with licence plates starting with "EL" (not electric, though). If they just have a faux charging cable sticking out, maybe they can park there without a fine?? Hmmm.....
Oh yes, the chains& locks have not been removed yet. It may not be sticks & stones, but Rihanna could sure sing us a song!

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New policy will lead to 10 million litres of wasted fuel

My previous post was regarding the closure of Olav Kyrres gate in Bergen city centre, which took effect 2 days ago.

Not only has this policy caused traffic chaos in Bergen, I have calculated the side affect of this so-called "environmentally friendly" policy; increased fuel consumption and congestion = increased pollution.

Closure of this street means that motorists
now have to drive extra miles around the
city to reach their destination. Photo: flickr

Let me explain. The closure of this street is supposed to make it easier for people to walk, and make the bus drivers happier because they don't have to worry about manoeuvering around cars during rushhour. The truth is, the busses are still posing a constant threat to pedestrian safety, so if they want to close down the street, they should close it down to all traffic, including busses and taxis.

 

Moreover, this new policy is leading to all the car drivers who have previously used this street to go all the way around the city. As I have mentioned in my previous post, this means added distance, and more traffic lights. From my experience, out of the 12 traffic lights on that route that we are forced to take from now on, at least 5 of them are always red. Stop & go driving always uses more fuel, so the proposed new route will lead to, on average, around 200ml of wasted fuel per car. This may not sound much but if you consider the following;

 

1. Bergen is a growing city. If the current population growth rate is 2% per annum, then it would take 35 years for the population to double.

2. This means that, even if the proportion of people driving to the city halved in the next 35 years, the number of cars will still be the same as today.

3. I do not know how many cars exactly passed the Olav Kyrres Gate per day, but if we assume 5000 cars per day on weekdays,and 2500 cars per day on weekends, it would be 30,000 cars /week.

4. That would be 1.56 million cars/year, and 54.6 million cars in 35 years.

5. If each car ended up wasting 200ml of fuel, that would come to approximately 10.9 million litres of wasted fuel. All that wasted fuel enters the city air in the form of CO2 and NOx, right into our lungs.

 

Do you see the problem now?

 

Update 29.09.2012

As expected, the traffic in the "diverted" roads got much worse! It was actually worse than I had expected, now it is a nightmare to drive through cerain parts of the city. That got some drivers cutting through residential streets and through the university area.

 

I do not understand what the policymakers were thinking in the policy design stage. The problem with Norwegian politics is that it does not involve the people in the planning stage. The people generally know about these things a day or so before the actual implementation. When it comes to evaluating the results and outcomes of the policy, they just look at the Olav Kyrres Gate and say how wonderful it is that there are no more cars there and how the policy had been successful. They do not take any consideration of the consequences and what additional problems the policy has created.

 

Do you have any stories to share regarding the poor policy planning in your town/city? Let me know!

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Farvel Olav Kyrres gate - fordi du stenges for biler i morgen

Olav Kyrres Gate in Bergen city centre will be closed to private cars from tomorrow. Molesting of motorists by the Norwegian policymakers knows no boundaries.

I am outraged to say the least, partly because I did not know about it until this morning when I read about it in the newspaper. Then I was outraged again by how small the article was.

This is a big issue! Olav Kyrres Gate is one of the main roads in the city centre which enables motorists to travel south directly through the city without having to reconnoitre through the complex one-way streets (One way streets? I think it is completely unnecessary for a small town of just 250,000 people!). Now all the cars have to add extra kilometres and traffic lights to their driving plan from tomorrow. Just imagine how much CO2 will be emitted by all the cars having to make a long detour around the city. Completely unnecessary.

 

The whole point of this, supposedly, is to make it easier for busses and taxies to go through the street without traffic jams. Big deal. The traffic jams are just going to shift places. The traffic jam will still exist in the streets. Just another place. Some reckon this will put drivers off from entering the city with their cars in the first place. I don't think so. In fact, because now that people have to drive the long route, cars are going to be in the city for longer, increasing pollution levels.

 



Click on the map to enlarge!

Imagine you're driving from Allehelgens gate (Point A on the map) to Rokkanshus (point B).Today, its just a 750 metre drive with 4 traffic lights, as shown in the blue rooute. But from tomorrow, its going to be 12 traffic lights and double the distance, as shown in red line. Lot of wasted fuel and time. And what for? Just to make some bus drivers happy?

 

The government cannot manage without the tax revenues from the car owners. Yet, its the car owners who are being punished for bringing in the taxes. What crazy world we live in.

 

 

Today, I took a last drive down Olav Kyrres gate in my beloved old car. The ride is bumpy, since the cobblestone road is not well maintained, so please bear with me. In a matter of hours, its all going to be part of history.

We can continue driving our old cars for the rest of our lives, and still not pollute as much as it took constructing one of them new "bybanens".  It's disappointing, really.

Check also; New policy will lead to 10 million litres of wasted fuel for more about this issue.

Any comments? Please feel free to make one below!

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