
A Swiss Lesson in Enlightened Street Design - bschne
https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2019/09/urban-planning-zurich-public-transit-street-design-traffic/599011/
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iron0013
There's an important point appearing about 2/3rds of the way into this
article: Zürich was not always oriented towards public transportation, and was
in fact much more car-oriented in the post-WWII years. It was conscious,
intentional, and relatively recent urban planning that made it the way it is
today.

Something similar also occurred in bike-friendly Amsterdam, which as recently
as the late 60's was much more car-friendly and much less bike-friendly.

Some folks, when shown successful examples of public-transit centered European
cities, claim that it would never work in the United States, in part because,
they claim, the Euro cities naturally evolved in such a way as to be more
amenable to public transport than automobiles. Well, it just isn't so!

~~~
gok
It's stated in the article but it's not really accurate.

Zürich is thousands of years old. It was never particularly drivable. There a
very brief period of time where they tried to make driving easier, then gave
up. It was always a high density city that was fundamentally walkable. During
the brief period of auto-friendliness, there was also a tram system that
remained operational.

Most American cities have no such density. You could magically make all the
streets narrow, rip out all the interstates and install a tram system in, say,
Omaha, and you wouldn't have a functional city. You'd just have ~500,000
people who couldn't get around.

~~~
burlesona
That’s not quite true.

Many American cities did have this kind of walkable orientation and moderate
density - they give the example of Bridgeport CT in the article, showing what
it looked like in 1913 and what it looks like now.

What many American cities did not have was the _population_ that they have
today. It is indeed quite different to talk about retrofitting the suburbs,
where a hundred million or so Americans live, where there was never anything
but car-oriented development.

The cities and towns that pre-date that era, however, could have easily grown
this way instead of the car oriented way.

The real problem is that car oriented development scales very poorly, and
there are few or maybe no easy ways to adapt it to accommodate either higher
density or more traffic from more horizontal adjacent growth.

~~~
wbl
Most American cities had population peaks in the immediate postwar period.

~~~
bobthepanda
Not the metropolitan areas, though.

What a “city” is depends on your local history and how arbitrary political
lines in the sand were drawn.

~~~
ghaff
>Not the metropolitan areas, though.

At some level, that's true. For example, if you take the US census definition
of "urban," which some 80% of the US population lives in, there's been pretty
much steady urbanization. But most people don't mean places like where I live
--with about 3 houses scattered across 100 acres--when they talk about urban
although it is according to the census.

On the other hand, the city of Boston--for example--whose political boundaries
more or less correspond to good public transportation and the like (or mostly
a bit bigger than that) was losing population into the 1990s.

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dijit
Interestingly London had one of the most extensive tram systems in Europe, but
sadly it was mostly abolished in favour of the Car because:

1) cars = freedom

2) trams are for the poor

A good little mini-doc by Jay Foreman spells it out nicely:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji3C_PjJonM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji3C_PjJonM)

Interestingly, a very similar story in the UK surrounding bicycles. :\

I wouldn't call Zurichs streets perfect though; by sheer coincidence I spent
the majority of today exploring the city for the first time in my life and was
very confused on how to cross the road at a lot of very ill-thought-out
junctions. And there are still a lot of very loud cars on the road.

However; I will admit there is a "feeling" when walking through the city that
it was well thought out in general, I felt like I had a lot of space and I
didn't get the same claustrophobic feeling I get in NYC or the cramped
"intruded" feeling I get in London.

~~~
kijin
London still has one of the most extensive underground railway systems in the
world, as well as the most iconic buses.

Notwithstanding the nostalgia that we often associate with them, trams are not
a magical method of transportation. Nothing of value is lost if you can get
the same job done with trains underground and buses above. Underground
railways have the additional benefit of not taking up precious urban space
that could be used by e.g. bicycles. It just happens that digging tunnels is
much more expensive than embedding a pair of rails in the pavement, so cities
have to think harder about short-term costs vs. long-term benefits.

~~~
dijit
I would very much love to agree with you. But London’s public transportation
system, while very good considering its age and the extensiveness of
deployment is not perfect; it is not a stretch to call it overburdened.

I lived there for 5 years and absolutely dreaded commuting.

A quick win would be to prevent the morning and evening rush. But that’s
another discussion entirely.

~~~
kijin
Of course it's far from perfect. It's an ancient, organically grown city that
contains roughly the same number of people as the entire country of
Switzerland.

Instead of romancitizing about European cities that are 1/20 of their size, I
wish Londoners and New Yorkers would look to China and Japan for better
examples. Those guys know how to build and maintain 21st century
infrastructure for millions.

~~~
simongray
> Those guys know how to build and maintain 21st century infrastructure for
> millions.

Maybe Japan? Haven't visited. But China has lots of terrible city planning and
they are way too into cars. I lived in Beijing for 2 years and Beijing traffic
is just the worse.

Beijing is also not a very good city to be a pedestrian in, as every major
street typically has 12-16 lanes and waiting at intersections takes forever.
It feels like walking along a motorway. Finding shortcuts throughs the
alleyways of a city block is also really hard as many of them are gated. Same
goes for any major Chinese city really, except for the ones with surviving
colonial city centres like Shanghai. The metro is pretty good, but definitely
not pleasant to use during rush hour, and changing lines usually entails a lot
of walking around underground tunnels.

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coldcode
This happened in a country with direct democracy, instead of the political
complexities in my country (US). It also took a long time to implement
(another downfall of US policy making). It's also a much smaller country. But
I wish we could do this, but it seems unlikely in much of the US to ever move
away from car central design.

~~~
eternalban
The Swiss are also quite civilized. Used to be (last I was there) that tickets
were rarely checked on buses in Geneva. It was an honor system.

That empty space would get jammed before you could say "this is not
Switzerland, Dorothy".

~~~
bschne
I don't know about exact policies on Swiss railway/local public transport
networks, but I'm pretty sure by now fines and frequency of checks are
calculated such that it ends up being cheaper for the transport company to
only do random checking instead of check every ticket.

~~~
dsego
Where I live, the bus drivers will now only open the first door to inspect
tickets, and then open all the back doors to let passengers out. I guess a lot
of folks (especially kids) were not buying tickets. And the inspector doesn't
have the authority to hold you or see your ID, so a lot of kids would just
play dumb, ask to exit at the next stop or even argue with the inspector. I've
even seen shoving and fights. Sometimes the bus driver would close all the
doors and wait for the police to arrive. This of course aggravate everyone
else on the bus. Other times they would have the police accompany the
inspector.

It's also common to hear someone come in at the front and ask the bus driver
to only go one stop without a ticket. I always thought it was a local or
regional thing. Then I heard the same in a Toronto streetcar, on the other
side of the world. A very surreal moment, it made me smile.

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mfelliott
I spent my youth in Geneva and the tram and buss system was fantastic. I could
and did get all over town unsupervised as a 10 year old kid. I wish there was
anyplace in the USA that had that level of access for our youth.

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mcv
The primary thing that strikes me about that photo is how far apart the tram
rails are. What's the space between the trams meant to be used for? Not cars,
I assume, as that would slow the trams. It also doesn't look like a
comfortable place for bikes. In fact, where are bikes even supposed to go on
this street?

And if you pay attention to the car in the distance, you see that trams and
cars are mixed in that direction; they're only separated in the direction away
from the camera. Separating trams and cars completely might do traffic a lot
of good here.

So it's not entirely clear to me what this street is supposed to be a good
example of. Cars and trams separated in one direction, but not in the other
(admittedly much less busy direction, at least at this moment). No space for
bikes. It's not as punitive for cars as the article suggests, nor as great for
trams as the article suggests. I guess it's okay for pedestrians.

The message of the article is certainly good: when it's crowded you need to
invest in more efficient forms of transportation than cars. But that top photo
is a poor example of that.

~~~
wereHamster
Can't find the exact location on google maps. But my guess is that there is a
tram stop right next to where the person is standing. The fact that the tram
blocks the cars is a good thing because it lets people get out without having
to worry about getting run over by cars. This would be just one of many ways
how tram stops are laid out along the streets. There are many factors that
decide how they are built. Perhaps there was not enough space to construct a
tram stop, two roads, and two tracks at the same location.

~~~
mcv
In Amsterdam, trams stops have a platform for people to get on and off. Is
that not a thing in other cities?

Also, if the tram stops cars, then cars also stop the tram, which means delays
when car traffic is stuck.

~~~
zepearl
> _In Amsterdam, trams stops have a platform for people to get on and off. Is
> that not a thing in other cities?_

Almost everywhere platforms in Zurich, but with very few exceptions.

> _Also, if the tram stops cars, then cars also stop the tram, which means
> delays when car traffic is stuck._

Trams in Zurich steer the traffic lights (TF) => when a tram nears an
intersection the TF will switch to let it pass and when it nears a section of
road which is shared with cars that occupy it, the TF in front of the cars
will let cars in front of the tram pass to free that section of street / lane
so that the tram can pass as well.

~~~
mcv
Jams can be caused by more than just traffic lights, though. Control of
traffic lights is not going to solve everything.

~~~
zepearl
I did not write about the cause(s) of traffic jams nor about controlling
traffic lights to solve anything. My post was about "trams", not cars.

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throwaway66920
I was in Zurich for a week. The public transit seemed effective, but the city
was so pretty and walkable that I didn’t use it, with the exception of a small
“polybahn” rail car that seemed to go up the hillside. I didn’t know where it
went, but it was 2 bucks and seemed charming so I rode it. Turns out it just
went up ~three flights of stairs worth of streets.

~~~
zhdc1
Those stairs suck though. I walked them for ~three years.

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concordDance
> During the peak hour, the vehicle lanes carry about 400 cars and perhaps 500
> people.

The entire article is based on this incredibly misleading sentence!

The reason that number is so low is because of how bad the traffic is. A
second lane could reduce that traffic and get you to the normal 1500-2400 cars
per lane (source: light googling/wikipedia). Which is actually superior to the
1750 people per lane you get from the trams! (Given the 1.25 people per car he
mentioned)

~~~
vincnetas
Have we read the same article? It explicitly discusses scenario about what
would happen if second lane would be given to cars:

That would give us one more lane of travel in each direction. With the
addition of turning lanes at the intersections, that would help a great deal:
Now we have the room to move 700 to 800 cars per hour. (“Voila! The model
shows that we are at Level of Service C or D,” reports the engineer. “Not
great, but better than before”).

But they’re forgetting about the 3,500 people in trams (and the thousands more
on foot and on bikes). How many of them would continue using the tram if it
ran in mixed traffic, and consequently was much slower and less reliable? What
if just 1,000 of them decided to switch to driving or to Lyft, now that the
tram would be in much poorer shape? Remember: This is a rich city, after
all—people have choices. Now we are back to square one.

~~~
concordDance
> It explicitly discusses scenario about what would happen if second lane
> would be given to cars

Yes, it's just wrong in assuming a simple linear relationship.

Unless there's something very special about Swiss roads that mean they have
only a quarter of the normal throughput, then the abysmal throughput the
author observed will be down to it being an endless traffic jam which could be
alleviated by another lane.

~~~
vincnetas
”During the peak hour, the vehicle lanes carry about 400 cars and perhaps 500
people. (I counted!) ”

He counted, not looked up the statistics. And this is during peak hour, not
peak throughtput.

~~~
concordDance
I don't see how that contradicts anything I've posted?

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Shobji
Switzerland is one of the best planned country in world

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k5hp
lol this picture was taken right in front of my house

~~~
em-bee
you just told everyone exactly where you live.

~~~
concordDance
So?

There's still a dozen houses they could be in. Too much legwork to identify.

~~~
em-bee
depends on your thread model.

the main point though was that people make such statements without thinking of
the potential consequences.

the comment added nothing to the discussion (that's not my complaint, just an
observation) and thus reveals personal information for no purpose. the risk
may be small, minuscule even, but it is greater than zero and, that is the
actual point, the risk is greater than the value that the comment adds to the
discussion.

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rb808
Damn that is an ugly street. Makes me appreciate subways.

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jpollock
If you're on a bike, that road is lethal. Any mistake and your tire's going
into the track and you're on the ground.

~~~
nxpnsv
You learn fast, zürich is not a bad place to bike. I bike with the tram on my
daily commute in vienna. Cars are by far a bigger danger on the roads. My
experience as a biker in zürich was pleasant, like most things in there, a
really nice place to visit...

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Pfhreak
A lot of American cities had excellent street cars, and were built around rail
lines, until Firestone, GM, and Standard Oil started funding National City
Lines, who bought up streetcars and replaced them with buses.

It's cool, their executives were fined $1 apiece, so justice was clearly
served.

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Noos
I don't get how that downtown even works. Do the Swiss not use trucks to
deliver goods? That car lane is too narrow for anything bigger than a
passenger car. There's no passing lane, so what happens if an ambulance or
fire truck needs to get through? How do bicycles even exist on that street,
since the bike lane seems to also be the passenger disembarking lane?

Why make pedestrians need to cross a line of traffic once they get off a tram?
Do you think you can push a stroller between two stopped cars? What happens if
someone spills a bag of groceries or goods?

I mean, it looks ten times easier to actually live in a suburb than this.

~~~
em-bee
emergency vehicles can use the rail tracks if they need to pass. them being
there is actually an advantage for that because if the road was full of cars
on all lanes, they could not pass either.

making pedestrians cross traffic after getting off the tram is indeed an
issue. but there are various solutions. usually the tram is close to an
intersection with traffic lights and crossings. you use those to get to the
tram.

the alternative would be to have the trams run on the sides and the car
traffic in the middle. but that doesn't work when the tram needs to get around
the corner, because it can't turn with such a short radius.

there are tradeoffs.

i have lived in the suburbs and in a street like the article describes. that
street is much more livable. for example i don't need to travel long distance
to buy groceries. the next supermarket is usually within walking distance.
other shops too, restaurants and anything else i might need. not so in the
suburbs where the next mall is often kilometers away.

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rpmisms
I love seeing solutions like this work in small European countries with small,
homogeneous populations, and then watching a bunch of Silicon Valley folk--who
live in a relatively small, homogeneous population--rant about how this should
be the standard for the whole US, which has neither a small nor homogeneous
population.

Edit: homogeneous areas, not populations. My bad.

~~~
namdnay
I’m not sure what is homogenous about Switzerland? If anything it’s one of the
more heterogeneous countries out there: a federation of regions with quite
different cultures and languages. And Swiss towns are far more mixed socio-
economically than the segregated suburbs common to many other countries

~~~
rpmisms
Relative to the US, every country is homogenous. We're a huge, sprawling mass
of literally every country on earth, liberally sprinkled across dozens of
different biomes.

~~~
namdnay
Ok, but what does this have to do with urban planning. The EU is a huge
sprawling mass of literally every country in earth across dozens of biomes,
and yet that didn’t stop Zurich from making these choices

~~~
kgwgk
Because Zurich is not in the EU! (I’m joking, I agree with your point.)

~~~
namdnay
Oops good point!

