I completely agree. Part of the problem I suppose is that the seasons are much more pronounced in Stockholm than in (say) Amsterdam, so the number of cyclists biking to work at rush hour tomorrow is vastly lower than the number you'll see a Monday morning in summer. That leads to poor utilization of the infrastructure in winter, should more of the (already limited) space be dedicated to cyclists. For cycling to be really viable I'd like to see cross town bike roads not just dedicated lanes on regular roads. A few streets have been shut down for road traffic already but I hope more will come.
May I ask why? As a year round bike commuter without a metro card I can not find any good reasons to chose bus/metro over riding a bike. The bike is almost always faster and gives me superior flexibility.
Haha, yeah, guess I've turned fanatic over the years. But really, I hear these comments all the time and I can't get my head around them.
1) It's definitely no colder than taking the metro. I put on significantly less clothes when I hop on my bike an hour from now and with proper clothing I stay dry and ventilated.
2) Snow clearance is prioritized on the bike roads. So far this year snow has only been a problem one day. That's when the snow chaos hit Stockholm. My friend got stuck in a car for 7 hours. My bike commute took 20 minutes longer than normal.
3) I have have studded tyres, I have not installed them this year though. Ice is hardly ever a problem. The bike roads are salted, which, ironically is the biggest problem of them all for me. Salt ruins the bikes, so I recommend using a cheaper bike in the winter.
It's faster, I get an hour of "free" workout each day and I can get to wherever I like inside the city without combining different modes of transportation using and app and standing in the cold waiting. When it's cold outside, I'd rather be moving.
In general I just feel liberated by having a bike, in the sense that I can quickly move from A to B on my own accord; unless you go directly from station to station, you can often beat the metro in terms of speed (without driving fast)). Depending on busses and subways for transportation makes me feel a bit uneasy (which is a bit unreasonable, I know, but the feeling is there). I also get antsy from just sitting all day at work and then on my commute too; the time spent waiting for and sitting in the bus/metro feels like dead time. By comparison, riding a bike makes me feel like I'm on the move and doing something.
But hey, I'm Dutch. My love of bikes is part of my culture. I can totally see how a long commute in the metro can be a moment of relaxation too, in-between work and family life at home; it just doesn't apply to me.
Thats still heavily subsidized. If you commute twice per day it's under €2 per way which is relatively cheap in a city where a beer is €8 and your lunch is €10.
