This is from Samuel Pepys’ diary, a cold snowy December day in 1665:
Up [at home in Greenwich], and met at the office [Navy Office at Greenwich Palace]; … At noon to dinner, Sir W. Warren with me on boat, and thence I by water, it being a fearfull cold, snowing day to Westminster to White Hall stairs and thence to Sir G. Downing, … So I parted from him and walked to Westminster Hall, … Thence back, landing at the Old Swan [near Cannon Street] and taking boat again at Billingsgate, and setting ashore we home and I to the office … and there wrote my letters, and so home to supper and to bed, it being a great frost.
The snow and the cold didn’t prevent a solid day of work. Three and half century later and 20cm of snow halt the business of the Capital: all the buses locked up at the stations. Hendy, transport supremo, says they would have skidded.
I understand that snowplows would not be justified for the generally mild London winters, but one could equip all the buses with snow-chains, with the bonus of a single bond-trader. Pathetic.
… and look at the most sophisticated segregated cycle lane in London, left abandoned in a mire of ice (picture courtesy of Rob):
and compare it with standard-issue cycle lane in the Netherlands:
or Denmark:
Both David Hembrow and Mikael Colville have written extensively on how the authorities in their respective countries keep the cycle lanes passable after a snow storm.
I leave you with the words on a poster at a Copenhagen bus stop, by the local authority:
Happy Christmas. If it turns out to be white we’ll clear the snow and salt the bike lanes and roads.
The only thing you have to do is clear the snow and salt the pavement in front of your property.
Read more about who does what on kk.dk/vinter.
Now, how many Londoners have cleared the pavement in front of their property yesterday?
UPDATE 8.2.9: Copenhagenize has an update on cycle lane snowploughs.
It's 1 C today. When I walked the dog a little earlier along the bike path next to the canal (which has been frozen most of the time since November), we had a class of school children on a school outing pass us on their bikes. School trips are always by bike, whatever the weather. None of the schools have shut here. When it was -9 C a few weeks back, our children cycled to school as normal, and also went on an additional class outing by bike in order to skate on a naturally frozen lake.
p.s. The photo you featured is not of a bicycle lane but of a bicycle road. The whole width is primarily for bikes, with cars considered as “guests” who can't use the road as a through route but for access to properties along it. They must give bikes priority and may not park on the road and inconvenience cyclists. It's a very busy route in rush hour.
No problem with iced-over bicycle lanes where I live. But that's because we don't have any bicycle lanes to speak of: you just have to take your chance sharing the roads with ill-tempered motorists driving inadequately warmed-up cars with fogged-over windscreens in the early-morning darkness.
I've been cycling to work every morning at 5:30 as usual, and the balloon tyres on my marvellous Finnish Helkama military bicycle have coped admirably with every surface they've encountered so far: hoar frost; glazed ice; fresh snow; compacted snow and the lot. Which is more or less what you'd expect for a machine descended from the ones used by the legendary Finnish ski battalions which stopped the Soviets in the campaign of 1939-40. In fact I believe that during the winter months the Finns still fit special studded tyres to their bikes for better grip on country roads and the surface of frozen lakes.
I understand that back in the days when balloon-tyred Swedish Kronan bikes were still quite popular in Holland there was an annual bicycle race on the ice near Amsterdam whenever the weather was cold enough.
This country though is past praying for: the most hopeless nation of cissies in all Europe. When I worked in northern Poland the buses and trains always ran to the minute in the midst of raging blizzards and temperatures of minus 25 with a wind that would sand-blast the skin off your face. Likewise in Norway taking the slightest notice of the weather was regarded as pitiful weakness (local saying: “there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing”). Only here does the whole country go into hysterical spasms over two centimetres of wet snow lying for half a day.
As for school outings to skate on frozen lakes, are you completely mad, Hembrow? So far as I'm aware you are still one of Her Majesty's subjects, and I'm applying for a warrant to have you arrested for gross negligence and child abuse next time you set foot in the country unless you can provide photographic evidence that your kiddies were wearing helmets, knee- and elbow-pads and all-round body armour with stabilisers to keep them upright. And had third-party insurance. And properly signed liability disclaimers.
Our local authority kindly came round and cleared a path to everyone's front door on Monday morning. They didn't bother to de-ice the roads though. And I've got the knives out for whoever cleared but didn't grit the cycle path through Hyde Park yesterday – the snowmelt had frozen overnight, leaving sheet ice. I (and the two following cyclists) went down this morning, with damage to the bike, my clothing, and a nice chunk of flesh out of my knee…
In America we are responsible for clearing the snow from the pavements in front of our properties. When I was a teenager my neighbours would pay me to do it for them. I used to make good money doing that back in the 80s. Up very early with a snow shovel – I could make $100 before noon by shovelling pavements and driveways. (In comparison on Monday eve a youth here in London threatened to steal my Brompton to make some money)
Here in London my housing association (never mind the council) still hasn't gotten the people they are already paying to do anything about the snow that has now turned to treacherous ice.
On Monday I cleaed the snow from our communal stairs myself.
Cars have been wheel-spinning past my house for four days now. What really annoys me are the people who say 'well we don't get much snow so we're unprepared for when we do'. In Dublin, where we get far less snow that here, all the roads get gritted, not just the main roads.
The fact is that Londoners have a high tolerance for shit service. They're just used to it.
I actually didn't dislike at all cycling to work with a bit of snow, but I see your point :^)
You suggest 'Snow chains' on buses!! You'd get pot holes like you've never seen before.
I have a feeling that if the US put a platoon of Marines on any US-flagged merchant ship operating in the Gulf of Aden and western nfcu Indian Ocean, the piracy risk to these ships would be rather low. I also suspect that you would see a number of shipping lines looking to reflag their ships – which could have the side effect of increasing the number of merchant ships that would be required to comply with US environmental, safety, labor, and other regulations regarding merchant shipping.