The sad fact is that most bicycles sold in America are not equipped properly for inclement weather or for utility. They should all have fenders and bike racks/baskets and the utility increases immensely. Fenders alone are super helpful. Without them you can't really even ride right after it is done raining because there will be spray up your back.
Chiming in from Minneapolis, major bike paths/routes are generally plowed just as often as the roads. It can be a hurdle, but it’s not as bad as you might think.
We used trucks with snow plows constantly in Finland too when it snows. The city where I'm from is called Tampere. I thought that the city used to be quite hostile towards bicycles ten years ago but since then they have built so many new biking lanes or removed lanes for the cars and replaced them for pedestrians and cycles. It was just faster to go everywhere with bicycle and with bicyclr6you don't need to spend time to search for a free parking place. If it rained a lot I used rain jacket or used the public transportation. In the winter we used tires with spikes in them (to battle the slippery ice).
Removing some lanes makes the city much more enjoyable for everyone but ofc this is harder to do in really old cities which were designed for horses or big metropolitan areas wherr extra land is scarce.
We moved to Tallinn, Estonia last year and compared to Finland the cycle lanes here are poorly designed and many local politicians still support cars over cycles which is a sad.
That's great for the hour after the snowplow passes, but what about after that? Snow + ice on a bike is a pretty easy crash. Even a slow speed crash on a bike can break bones, unlike cars.
Snowplows don't remove all the snow usually because it would damage the road a lot, so you are left with packed snow which is fine to ride on.
You can also use studs tires if you worry.
I ride my bike in Sweden frequently even with a lot of snow without trouble. The only thing to worry about is when spring comes and the snow melts by day and freezes at night but on the main bicycle lanes the problem is solved by salting them once the weather gets mild.
I use a regular gravel bike (so not huge tires, 38mm) without stubs tires. Never fell.
I just don't ride during snowstorms directly of course but in those cases even buses and trains can be canceled until it calms down a bit.
As a fellow swede I don't think your argument holds against the real argument they're not mentioning. People want to ride cars because they're lazy and they don't want to experience the elements, but since it's shameful to admit they'll come up with any other excuse to sit in their car, drink soft drinks, eat junk food and listen to the radio with perfectly controlled climate surrounding them.
I bought myself a Xiaomi scooter and wear a good jacket while listen to music through my Sony overears riding to work. I'll have to wait with the soft drink and junk food til I arrive though. I also wear a backpack to carry whatever.
There's a level of risk associated with the activity, there's no denying that. Risk mitigation factors can be applied to reduce the risk to a palatable level for a lot of people. Snow tyres, riding slowly, using lights in low light etc.
The opportunity is to convince more people that cycling is a legitimate option for a large group of people. Infrastructure investment instills confidence and further education for both cyclists and drivers help to manage that risk.
Whilst cycling in the snow might not be your cup of tea, there's a cohort of people who could consider it as a net positive to get from A to B, exercise and put less wear into the road. And we need to support those people.
Jacket might be ok for small rain, but for heavy rain and thunderstorm? No.
Employers expect employees to come to work every business day, and people expect business to open every business day, even under heavy rain and thunderstorm.
Watch! Heavy rain/wind! Most people can't go to work! Most businesses are closed! Teachers can't go to schools! Nurses can't go to clinics and hospitals! What a ridiculous picture of a modern city.
New proposal: this city only allows residents who are 20s/30s years old and healthy and fit.
I realized there is an easier solution: the whole city is a huge building, everyone lives and works inside. And you get time to go out once a while. ^_^.
You dress up better. For the past several years, biking was the only way I went to work, the only exception being if my bike was in the shop for repairs when I'd take public transport.
You'll notice that regardless of the weather, people bike. Chuck some rain pants and a rain coat on, or carry an umbrella, or get a bike poncho thing, or all of the above. It's not hard.
If it's seriously shitty weather, the public transport is a bit more full than otherwise, but still people are out biking because that's how you get from A to B.
You are only thinking the situation where biking is a minority choice. If you want biking become a choice for most people, these solutions do not work.
Huh? I'm literally thinking of the opposite. I'm describing where I live, which is somewhere where biking is not really a minority choice, it's what most people do.
Couple of things from my anecdotal experience. Firstly, people already do this, yeah there are less cyclists in winter but the dedicated still ride. Secondly, nobody is advocating for bikes and nothing else, bike infrastructure in combination with a proper public transport system. Finally I see older people riding bikes regularly, often with a grandkid on the back or front and I'd guess they're in better shape for it.
Why does everything have to be discussed in absolutes? It can be the default choice for most people most of the time and yet you've decided that it can't ever be because of a small set of scenarios in which you've decided it doesn't work. Like I said, not advocating for bikes and nothing else but the default choice for most people should not be owning and driving a car everywhere, electric or not.
It's funny, no matter how I post about cities that have made cycling for transport work, there's always someone downplaying how meaningful it is.
You could look at Stockholm or Amsterdam or Copenhagen or Munich for biking, too. Those are all colder cities (but not as cold as Oulu) with decent or better bike infrastructure and cycling rates.
I'm in Munich and can speak to my experience here. Munich isn't as good as Dutch cities, but it's still better than any US city I've visited or heard of, by a fair margin. Weather is similar to Seattle, so kind of cold on average, but not horribly so. This winter we definitely had a fair amount of freezing though, and actually the last couple days we had snow again.
Munich makes it work with lots of protected bike lanes that clearly used to just be sidewalk. That's not ideal -- it cuts into walking space, obviously -- but it's still better than no bike infra, or painted bike lanes. There's also a fair number of off-street trails, multi-use paths (half the time these are just sidewalks where bikes are allowed, really) and walk/bike cut-throughs in neighborhoods. Oh, and the default road width in residential neighborhoods is small, which helps a lot.
