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Munich wants to extend the thrill of the open highway to cyclists with a network of bike lanes running through the city and into the suburbs, in a bid to encourage car-free commuting.
The ambitious plan calls for a network of 14 two-way bike paths, each 13 feet wide and fully segregated from automobile traffic, that would spread out over an area of about 400 square miles. No crossroads, no traffic lights. It's an autobahn for cyclists, or, as the Germans obviously call it, a Radschnellverbindungen.
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The planned routes would connect Munich with small city centers, universities, and employment centers. They would be built over a combination of what's now open land, small streets, and conventional size bike lanes.
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Building the Radschnellverbindungen's not a done deal yet. Local authorities must approve the project before construction starts, and it won't be cheap. The German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung pegs the estimate at $1.75 million per mile.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by davester666 on Sunday August 02 2015, @08:00AM
Because who minds biking to work 30 km every day? And back.
Hey, lets all go out for dinner. We'll go bike to that special place that's closer than all the good restaurants.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by iwoloschin on Sunday August 02 2015, @12:35PM
What's wrong with that? Any cyclist, on a flat, well maintained path can easily do 12mph (20 kph). An experience cyclist on a lightweight road bicycle could likely push it up to 18+mph (29+ kph), making that trip take about an hour. I'm not familiar with Munich, but I suspect that their traffic is bad enough that to go a similar distance by car would take about as long, or potentially even longer! Plus, you don't have to buy a gym membership!
(Score: 1) by tftp on Sunday August 02 2015, @11:57PM
An experience cyclist on a lightweight road bicycle could likely push it up to 18+mph (29+ kph), making that trip take about an hour.
Every driver can make this trip at 50-60 mph, making that trip under 20 minutes. Perhaps they have something else in life to spend those freed up 80 minutes on? Hobbies, perhaps, children, books - or just to stay a bit longer at the restaurant?
I don't want to denigrate bicyclists [any more than they deserve ;-] - but in the modern world time spent on transportation from A to B is a waste. It is great if a bicyclist can turn this waste into much needed exercise. Most people, however, do not ride bikes for a hobby, and they'd rather get "there" and "back" as fast as possible, so that they can focus on what they really want to do. There are also some weird social customs about not coming to a fine restaurant all dusty and sweaty, stinking up the place. Exercise and social functions have to be separate, with distinct time and place for each.
(Score: 2) by jcross on Sunday August 02 2015, @02:59PM
I've commuted and got around by bike a fair bit, and I can tell you that there's a huge difference between biking with cars versus on a separated bikeway. Biking with cars is more stressful and slower, because you have to deal with traffic lights. Travelling on a bikeway feels fast and fun, and with some level of fitness it would not be hard to cover that in an hour. And actually if you look at the actual traffic speeds in dense U.S. cities like New York, San Francisco and D.C, 30kph or 18mph is about the speed you're looking at if you were driving:
http://infinitemonkeycorps.net/projects/cityspeed/ [infinitemonkeycorps.net]
Now that's why you'd probably be taking the subway in those cities, but a bikeway also gives you some of the flexibility of driving, plus fresh air and exercise if you're into that. I think this is an awesome idea.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by zafiro17 on Sunday August 02 2015, @06:08PM
You've got a point, but your point of view is shaped by the world that's been built around you/us over the past 100 years based on cheap fuel and the automobile. And that world has created, as consequences, other social and economic effects that underpin 'modern' life. I don't have enough coffee in me to expand - it's really an essay - but think about modern American suburbs, sprawling, boring, soulless. Get rid of the car and everybody has to work and shop close to where they live. Then instead of commuter suburbs and the daily grind, you'd get a world that looks more like the patchwork villages of the 17th and 18th centuries. If everyone biked to work, you'd find food markets and local craftsmen again, and the idea of buying shoes from some Turkish merchant that were produced in China and shipped on a Liberian boat would again seem ludicrous.
I'm describing the post-oil world, if there is to be one, but I'm doing so because your comment about rejecting the bike owing to the distance of that great restaurant reflects the world we built around cheap transportation. It is what it is, and will stay that way until we find new and more innovative ways to live, or when oil/transportation costs change to make 'this' world prohibitively expensive.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
(Score: 1) by Darth Turbogeek on Sunday August 02 2015, @11:36PM
Actually, 30km commute would be 40kms shorter than my afternoon ride home.
Now if I went 30km commute by bike - that would also be faster than car / public transport with how rotten the roads and transport is at peak hour. If you are anywhere near in shape, it's only an hour and a bit. And if you commute 30kms, you get in shape pretty damn quick and I have lousy bike infrastructure to deal with. Dedicated bike infrasture would make it faster and even more compelling.
Oh and riding in anything other than blistering cold is honestly no problem.