How is a Bike Tunnel this Freak'n Great!?

Bergen is a city on the West coast fjords of Norway, surrounded by mountains. And they just built the best bicycle tunnel in the world.

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Relevant Videos

How American Fire Departments are Getting People Killed

The Next Great Cycling City (Oslo)

Train Tunnel at Snoqualmie Pass, 2.3 mile one way hike, bring a flashlight!!

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References & Further Reading

See Inside the World’s Longest Purpose-Built Cycling Tunnel

Don’t forget your headlamp: The Snoqualmie Tunnel is over 2 miles of total darkness

Bergen Historical Photos:

Heritage Impact Assessment of the planned Bybanen Light-Rail Extension on the World Heritage Property Bryggen / Bergen

Bybanestriden fortsetter etter ny rapport

The overwhelming majority of this video was filmed on location by Not Just Bikes, though a few scenes use stock footage from Getty Images

No generative AI or AI voices were used in the making of this video

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Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:51 How the tunnel came to be
2:00 "Architectural psychologist" is a thing?!
2:33 Season-themed rest stops & safety features
4:02 Lots of thoughtful elements all come together
6:04 The centre is the best part
6:45 This tunnel is popular!
7:52 Sorry Yanks, but the Snoqualmie tunnel doesn't count
9:03 Surrounding bicycle infrastructure
9:55 Acoustic bikes & bikeshare
11:14 The LRT line that made this possible
13:35 Before you start making excuses about oil ...
15:01 Buses in Bergen
15:57 The insane parking garage
16:30 Trains in Bergen
17:32 The original LRT line
18:22 Damage done by car-centric development
19:24 Future LRT plans and "historic preservation"
21:51 Designing for humans makes cities feel alive
22:37 Historic streets
23:24 The funicular and terrible weather
24:20 Concluding thoughts
25:05 How to support this channel (Nebula)

[NotJustBikes]

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[Soonjai]

You really convinced me to make a vacation in a flat, tropical city with year round sunshine. You know, like Bergen, Norway.

[kristinwistveen]

"ThiS oNly woRks iN TroPicAl areAs, you know, like Bergen" 😂 kept laughing harder every time, especially as someone who lives in Bergen

[Hawkon]

Architect from Bergen here. The parking garage will soon be demolished and replaced with high rise apartment buildings, a hotel and a music arena. I would know since I built a model of the proposal. Unfortunately they want to excavate 3 floors under the thing to add the parking back in.

[besknighter]

As a Brazilian, seeing people leave their belongings at the entrance and coming back to pick them up after doing their laps (which takes at least 18 min roundtrip) was the most unbelievable thing. Here you could be 100% sure it'd be gone even before getting to the middle of the tunnel during your the first lap.

[magnusengeseth]

This is actually even more impressive than it might appear to an outsider, since they're probably unaware that the natural state of the born-and-bred Bergenser is a mix of "annoyingly stubborn" and "refusing to give an inch in even the most pointless argument". So getting this built in Bergen of all places is super impressive!

[mrtnsnp]

Given the amount of rain in Bergen – 2250 mm/year, Amsterdam has 766 mm/year – I can imagine that this is a welcome addition for the local running community, not just as a cycle tunnel.

[rolandcombes]

When I first arrived in the U.S. in 1980 as a teenager, I was bombarded at school by the messages "We're Americans, not American'ts", "We have a 'can do' attitude", "American ingenuity is the finest in the world" and "We can do what they say can't be done". Now all I hear is lame excuses as to how they can't do what Europe does because somehow the U.S. is "different".

[ForenaamAkternaam]

Norway: beautiful tunnel
America: indie horror setting

[bluewind]

Even the small-ass northern Norway city I live in with especially brutal winters still has frequent bus services and decent biking infrastructure, the US and Canada has no excuse other than "we bow to the car companies and oppose everything that weakens their reign"

[timbrut]

I want to start out by saying, I am horribly claustrophobic. I don't even watch videos or movies where people go into places where they could be trapped, I get panic attacks when I see things like this. Also, your video is 27 minutes long, I told myself, I am not watching all of this video, I will give it a couple of minutes and as soon as I am bothered, I will switch away.
I watched the entire video, with amazement. I am an older guy, and I don't really travel much and I do less biking. Watching this video, I thought to myself, if I were there, I think I would actually attempt this tunnel.
Also, I watched the entire video. I don't have the best of hearing, but I could hear all your words so clearly, and you speak at a speed that was so easy to listen to.
I enjoyed every minute of this video,
Thank you so much for making this video
Tim

[PapaOystein]

The local hill, Fløyen, serves as a weather vane, with a simple heuristics:
If you can see the top of Fløyen from city center, it will soon rain. If you can't see Fløyen, it's raining already!

[NerdyGuyRanting]

Speaking as a Swede, if there is one thing I can say about Norwegians it is that they are insanely good at making tunnels.

[SheerDexterity]

North Americans: "We can't install biking infrastructure here because It'S tOo CoLd!"

Meanwhile, in Norway:

[DavidShepheard]

There is one hidden benefit of the bike tunnel / footpath conversion of that emergency tunnel, that you did not mention.

Mass familiarity with the emergency means that if something bad happens, like a fire on a tram, and people have to flee down the railway line and into the nearest emergency exit, instead of arriving in a mystery tunnel that makes them feel the are far away from safety, they will arrive in a place like "Spring." Many of the passengers will know exactly where they are and will be able to help calm down other passengers and assure them that the a rescue is on the way.

And, if something terrible, like a crash happened, you could have doctors and first aiders on bikes riding to the scene to get their faster. Maybe having a bike share dock at both ends, with an override system for the emergency services to use to release bikes would be useful.

[Ubersicht]

It might sound silly, but seeing thoughtful, considerate projects that are both useful and beautiful is moving to me, almost gets me teary eyed. Perhaps it's grief for a glimpse into a world that could be, but isn't.

[boringdallas]

What a radical concept, building places people want to be rather than places people are forced to be.

Anyhow, I wonder how they deal with all the vampires, ghouls, and other nightstalkers?

[richardhefty]

When he explained the tunnel is basically a side project of another great urban infrastructure project, and that you're sort of getting this amazing cycle path FOR FREE I was punching the air. What an amazing idea.

[EvaristeWK]

Doug Ford is so obsessed with his $150B road tunnel under the 401, maybe we can convince him to build a bike tunnel like this beside it lmao

[j-bird]

You mean to tell me that it cost ONLY about 25 million euros to upgrade this tunnel? Meanwhile my city removed multiple traffic lights and the accompanying crosswalks to "ease congestion". What resulted instead was multiple car crashes, a lot of close calls with pedestrians, and a huge lawsuit over both driver and pedestrian safety. The lights were put back in just one month at. All said and done this cost 18 million dollars. 18 million dollars to temporarily make one street in town excessively dangerous!