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RE: Waiting for the bus ... and some general thoughs on silly planning
Dang, we need a free IKEA bus, lol. We have one here but I've never been because it is waaaaaaaaay on the edge of the metro area. It's in a shopping center full of big outlet stores and such, they should chip in and do a shuttle. :)
In a society where "everyone" is having and using a car, setting up free buses to attract potential shoppers probably doesn't make economic sense. Here in Oslo quite many "ordinary people" realize they don't need a car, hence the potential users of the free bus ofer represent quite some purchasing power.
At the other hand ... while the single fare tickets for the transport here is reasonably expensive, monthly unlimited passes are comparably cheap, so almost all public transport uses have "free transport" anyway.
But the issue here is that people who have cars won't give them up because the public transport sucks, the sidewalks suck, the bike lanes are few, far between, and dangerous. It needs to be improved in order for people to give up their cars, among those who have a choice.
Here, the regular fares AND the monthly passes are absurdly expensive - for terrible service. This is another reason why people keep their cars!
It's terrible. I've grown up biking around, my mother got her first car when I was in school age, and she rarely would work as my private taxi driver, if I wanted to go somewhere I had to do it myself. I really got aware of the non-spoken policy of "car drivers first" as a child, and I still see quite some examples of that. Just a tiny pot hole in the car road, and someone may put up warning signs blocking the biking road or sidewalk - while the biking road can just stop without any warning, if some biker would keep 30 km/h and accidentally die due to the missing warning ... well, bad for him. Companies are paid for keeping the road clean for snow - and they don't mind dumping the snow in such a way that it blocks shortcuts for pedestrians, etc. And this is Norway - probably one of the better countries for non-drivers, things are generally much worse abroad. Of course this causes quite some bad feedback loops. One of the worst here in Norway is when people are driving their kids to school, because it's considered "too dangerous" to allow them to walk to school. My children walks to school, it's a quite nice way to walk, the most dangerous part is the last 100 meters to the school where lots of car-driving parents are trying to park and turn around their vehicles.
Things are gradually changing here in Norway and particularly here in Oslo, I believe we have passed a tipping point here. The green party has had quite much power over the politics here in Oslo during the last four years and will have even more power here over the next four years, it helps a lot.
Quite some car drivers are protesting loudly against the high road tolls, even to the extent that they have created a new protest party and getting a significant amount of votes in the Norwegian local elections of 2019.
They may be loud, they may be getting a significant amount of votes, but the political forces wanting to reduce road tolls are still in a minority, both in Oslo and the rest of Norway. There is a broad consensus that in the urban areas car traffic should not grow, even if the population grows and even if the cars are getting "greener" and smarter. The most efficient means to get there is to have relatively high road tolls in urban areas, and spend the money on public transport, roads for pedestrians and bikers, etc - but I do believe a lot can be gained in the details. Often it can be possible to making life better and safer for non-drivers without spending a lot of money, like making it illegal to stop a car outside the school in the morning, or ... simply making sure to place the bus shed at some place where it's not continuously splashed by waves is a good example. :-)
Unfortunately one of the parties having power on the national level is also against road tolls and for spending tax and oil money on building new car roads.
The snowplows are THE WORST for pedestrians. They plow it up onto the sidewalk and in the bike lane such that some days I want snowshoes and poles to walk with - someone in a wheelchair or with a walker couldn't make it through at all. It's literally trapping them inside! When I have to climb a mountain of snow at the corner to be able to cross the street ...it's just ridiculous.
Here in Denver, we've already had 60something deaths of bicyclists this year - more than all last year already - and people are still complaining that they don't want a protected bike lane on their street WHERE SOMEONE JUST DIED because they think it will be "unsightly." People are so selfish and shallow and uncaring it makes me mad. A couple of weeks after that bicyclist died, someone caught video of a van tipping over and rolling a half a block away from where she was hit - so it's not a safe street for cars, either - and still people are like, "but mah aesthetics." RAWR
They can be pretty bad here in Norway too, but generally if there are side walks they are supposed to clean the side walks too.