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The small Norwegian city of Bergen has something most North American cities have tried to do, but still don’t have — a competent light rail system. Let’s take a look at the Bybanen in depth!
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reese babe, i love your content, v thoughtful, but cost and variability across the world is a massive blindspot for you.
i get the value of comparing systems in places with different political priorities to encourage better ones, but some countries/cities are just f@$king loaded in a way most places aren’t. yes, bergen made a bunch of great design choices, but that is only possible in a place so small bc norway is a-WASH in oil money.
its just silly to compare bergen or oslo’s systems to other similarly sized cities and opine on why everywhere can’t be so incredible like it’s possible. we know why, its oil money or a brutal legacy of colonialism, and it just is not possible in most other places.
i understand it can still be useful as a point of departure for showing the potential of transit systems in a better world, but that world will only come through radically changing political priorities, which is its own conversation about politics that you should intentionally engage in if you’re going to go there at all.
to act like it just has to do with transit, and that it’s a simple matter of budgeting and sheer will verges on disingenuous and fantastical.
On the topic of Norway punching "above its weight", real life lore just did an episode explaining the history of why Norway is the wealthiest country per capita in the world. They have LOTS of money, and a strong history of collaboration.
It must cost a fortune per Km
to built a fantastic looking system like that in 2024 money in Canada!
Norway is not a sustainable country but a oil and gas producer.
Very cool to see my hometown featured on my favourite transit channel!
The grand canopy equivalent in North America is the cover over the gas fill-up area at Buc-ees on I-95.
I have always wanted to move to Norway—Bergen specifically. But, that ship has unfortunately sailed for me. Everything you described about Bergen's transit system is yet another reason why I would love to move there.
Since the video didn't mention anything about future expansion, I will tell you about it here. I totally understand why he didn't, almost all relevant documents are not available in english. I have read hundreds of articles, interviews, angry comment sections, and a bunch of official planning documents. There are a few possible ways to expand further. We could expand to the north, further west, or west a different way. The expansion north is fully planned and even has a video on YouTube that shows the route nicely. Politically, the expansion northward is quite controversial. Although most people want the expansion, or at least claim to. There has been an intense discussion around if it should be built as planned in front of Bryggen, the UNESCO World Heritage site, or in a tunnel behind Bryggen. The people who want the tunnel claim that the "daylight" option could damage Bryggen. They are wrong, in fact, the tunnel option is considered being of higher risk to Bryggen due to the local geology. They also claim many other things that are simply not true, over exaggerated, or will happen no matter what option we choose. The one actually valid argument that I have heard so far is aesthetics, or maybe pedestrian safety. Which is fair, until you realize that there is literally a road there currently. That road would become a transit-only road, but it still is a road. Even if the aesthetics argument was valid, it is in no way worth greatly increasing the cost and construction time. Not to mention that the "daylight" option is already ready to go, we could (likely) start construction this year if the politicians wanted to. It seems like no one who knows what they are talking about wants the tunnel. The entire project is also dependent on 70% government funding and that the road authorities start on expansion to the Fløyfjellstunnel. Best case, we see the project finishing early 2030s, worst, it won't even start construction before then, and would be completed late 2030s. The expansion west is less contentious, there is an easy expansion to do by finishing the 2nd line which was cut short because they blew the budget. It would just be one more station, but it is all planned and ready to start. The line could subsequently be extended further through another tunnel, ending up at Loddefjord, and even stretching further to reach the Storavatnet bus terminal, which currently is a bit isolated. There is also another westward expansion; it would start in the city center and snake around to the Dokken area, where the "Dokken 2050" project has basically a whole new area planned with thousands of apartments. It would then cross the river and go through the Laksevåg area, which is a challenging area to build in. It would then likely follow the highway to the Loddefjord area. Which one of these is built first is not clear, but it will take decades anyways. I am open to questions.
Brilliant video
Hi! From Australia and visited Europe for the first time in December and Bergen was one of the cities I visited, even though the weather wasn’t great for outdoor activities, I still had a great time there and the rail system was absolutely amazing! In general public transport in Europe is very good
I live in Victoria,BC. Would love to see a system similar to this one here. Particularly with the tie-in with cycling and walking…. Thanks for this !
What a great showcase of Bergen’s light rail!
I visited Bergen in July 2022, (of course by taking a train from Oslo) and when I needed to get to the airport from my city center AirBnb, I jumped on the idea of taking the light rail the whole length.
It was just as you said it was, fast, modern, and with a bunch of nice touches like the different jingles at each stop. This was back when there was only one long line, but I did notice the extension and a station on it near the bus station.
The only problem was paying the fare, the app was very glitchy and took forever to download, and it took all the way until the second to last stop where I finally got it to work.
Otherwise, it’s a very useful system that punches above its weight, even for Europe. The system in it of itself makes me want to visit Bergen again, and I would move there if it wasn’t for the weather and priciness.
This is a reasonable example of LRT's chameleon-like abilities working well. Shock horror – it's a 100% low floor system running along the street for short portions and also in grade separation – and it works great! Of course, it's a different question if you're looking at a city of the size of NYC considering the same mode. But in smaller cities, mixing street-running/grade separation is fine and isn't some terrifying capacity crunch nightmare that often some transit advocates get into hysterics about.
Nice video and yea Norway is a beautiful country.
What is your opinion of Sydney's LR system? Including the new, upcoming extension to Parramatta
Hi Reece! I'd love to see a video on your thoughts on request stops! I recently visited Manchester (UK) and was pleasantly surprised that their trams stopped at every stop, whereas Nottingham (UK), a city I know much more, passengers have to press a button when they want to get off. I personally dislike request stops but I'd love to get your thoughts!
Bergen has a great light rail system while cities that size in Canada can barely even have buses with 15 mins frequency on key routes.
In Los Angeles, we could never have those big shelters. The wrong sort of people would be able to get too much shade. Making sure the wrong sort of people don't have any conveniences is the main goal of LA city planning. If mass transit incidentally emerges from that, it's fine, but that's a secondary goal at most. The more nice things you keep from those people, the nicer things are for rich people in comparison.
Santos SP Brasil has a tram system too. They’re building a new line now
Victoria, BC. Take note.
One thing some of the Variobahn units in Bergen were actually meant for Croydon, Stadler Germany had spare capacity and sent the vehicles originally meant for Bergen to London and built some new ones for Bergen
This could've been Edmonton but instead they chose 20 acres per like 3 big box non-canadian stores with . It's like that quote about never getting h igh off your own supply.
I drive in Bergen every day
Yes, it works.
As a Norwegian, I have but one note. Every time you say "the Bybanen" I have to aspirate. "Bybanen" on its own means "the city railway" which makes the article redundant. In English the system is officially known as the Bergen Light Rail, or if you want to use the Norwegian name you have two options. You can either call it "the Bybane", or simply "Bybanen" without the English article. Other than this, great overview of the system.
Very impressive. I don't remember having previously seen any videos about Bergen, but your video has shown what a beautiful and clean city it is. The Norwegians seem to have a good attitude to getting things done and doing them well.
It's a good system now, but with the northern extension – and decades more of transit-oriented development – it'll be excellent.
Excellent video footage by your Norwegian correspondent, Mr. Edvardsen.
Please do a explainer video about Bordeaux's tram and bus system (similar to what you did for Lyon) thx
Can you do a video on Parramatta's up and coming new light rail system?
I suggest you do a video on LRT in Innsbruck, Austria! It connects faraway suburbs and is still expanding with one of the largest infrastructure investments in the country.
As someone living in Bergen, the Bybanen is one of the best parts of this city, especially in the cold and rainy weather.
would love if you could talk about Montpellier, France sometime. It's tram design is unique in the world !
Bybanen is great, but it is also the most hotly debated political issue in Bergen over the past decades. It has made and broken several city governments. This could be worth a video of its own since it illustrates the particularly sanguine mentality of Bergeners and their strong emotions about their city.
just call it a tram
Can you do one video on the Rabat (Morocco) tram
Tampere light rail system next, please!
You should do a video on Gothenburg, second largest city in Sweden with the largest tram and light rail network in the nordics!
Bergen mentioned
Another great video. Really cool LRT system. Just a few comments on how I think the video could be improved: the map scale should be visible on the maps you show, so people understand better the spatial distribution of the system; it would be nice if you gave some examples of the travelling times and distances, and therefore average speed, between stops (within the city and in the outskirts), because I think these are important metrics to compare this system to other LRT systems.
Nevertheless, keep going with your great work!
It's probably good that you didn't get into it, but the Bybane was, and still is, extremely controversial! Mostly due to the cost of building the thing, and the fact that it's partially financed with road tolls.
At the moment the newly elected right/far right, very car-centric City Government coalition is de facto killing off those all-important new lines. Mainly to lower local road tolls (these contribute a bit to the LRT project). If the plans from 2012 had not been shot down, the extended network could have been finished by now. Instead the most optimistic projections are aiming for a possible, but in reality unlikely finishing by 2036.
"By" (pronounced "boo") means "city" and "ban" means "track" — the en at the end is the definite article. So this name means "The City Track"
We were in Bergen about ten years ago and loved everything about it (and everything else in Norway ).We arrived from Oslo by train, mile for mile, one of the world's most scenic intercity train rides. The light rail had not been open very long. We used it to go to a large grocery about midway on the original line. We were impressed with the operation and we're pleased to see them expanding it. Thanks for your edition of the Bergen transit operation.
As a Stadtbahn fan I thought your views on light rail aren‘t that controversial, but I guess that sets me apart from NA light rail fans…
I wouldn't call a city with a population of 300 000 "small". It would rank in the top 20 biggest cities in Canada. Still a good video otherwise.