Zurich, the city where Pedestrians Rule and Cars Drool

For all you know the picture above could be our own Denver 16th Street Mall, until you see the signs are in Swiss-German or notice the light rail lines.

But maybe it’s the Downtown Denver of a few years from now with the New Union Station Completed and our updated light rail system complete.

Nah, its Zurich.

Earlier this month I had a wonderful trip to Zurich to attend a friend’s wedding.  It was a little ironic that I was visiting this city made famous for it’s anti car mentality since I had just written about it due to a New York Times article that was discussing how many cities in Europe were focused on “Irking Drivers”.

Well let me tell that all the hype about the pedestrian friendly / car unfriendly rumors about Zurich were very, very true.  And I got a kick out of it.

Europe has taken the lead in prioritizing bike, pedestrian and public transportation over the automobile.  With fuel costs going up and fuel dependency becoming not just a cost but an economic risk the more a city and it’s residents can get around auto free the better.

But how to do that.  Well Zurich is the gold medal winner for putting in place a system that seems to be working.  First of all the cost of fuel is outrageously high.  Our Swiss friends shared that they are paying about $9 a gallon at the U.S. equivalent.  OUCH!!

That doesn’t just make car driving painful  We learned quickly that that translated into very very expensive cab rides.  One cab ride was all it took for us to be motivated to learn the street paths of the city and we managed to walk almost everywhere we wanted to go even if that meant an hours walk to dinner.  We could have learned the public transportation system but Zurich did something else cool.  They kept the streetscapes and pedestrian walkways beautiful.  That’s another reason why Denver street projects such as the Tennyson Streetscape renewal make me happy.

So we walked the city of Zurich and loved it.  We had fresh air, a chance to check out the streets and shops of Zurich on our way, and great company.   And quite frankly the cab to and from anyplace we went would have been the cost of our dinner.

But high gas prices are just one step.  Zurich also made the intersections über pedestrian friendly by making many crosswalks pedestrian prioritized.  What that means is you walk up to a crosswalk and SCREEEEEEECH the cars come to halt immediately.  Really, they don’t even seem to THINK of not stopping no matter how fast they are going.

Our hosts shared the traffic rules where cars stop for pedestrians PERIOD.  There are cameras that are set up on the crosswalks and if a car doesn’t stop it is almost guaranteed the driver will be looking at a very, very, expensive ticket.

One Swiss resident even shared that it can sometimes be embarrassing because as a pedestrian if you are foolish enough to stop and chat by a crosswalk you soon find a line of cars stopped waiting for you to move.   But the message is clear.  Pedestrians are important and they get the right of way.  If you are foolish enough to get in your car TOUGH LUCK if it takes you an hour to get across town.

I’m not exaggerating.  Of course there are some traffic lights and crosswalks that use pedestrian walk signs but in this instance the lights change from green to red fast.  Cars seem to take forever to get through the intersection because it’s stop and go, stop and go, stop and go.  For pedestrians it’s GREAT because it’s never a long wait to get a walking symbol and for pedestrians the walking symbol stays lit for a decent amount of time.

Even the one drive we did with our hosts to their mountain retreat (where we got authentic Swiss Fondue… so dang good I still crave it) it took forever to get out of the city because they have lights set up to slow the flow of traffic onto their version of a highway.  You know the lights we have at the highway entrances that manage flow during heavy traffic hours with one light.  Now imagine a series of these stretched over a mile.  In Zurich all you need to do is give up your car and jump on the train to make these headaches go away.

So high cost of fuel, unfriendly rules, and time sucking lights make it the most painful, expensive and slow transit option.

And for these reasons and many more we just walked and enjoyed ourselves.  I bring this up because of all the cities for living car optional Denver is my favorite.  We have great weather (most of the time) for pedaling or walking to work, a great system of transit underway, and even some slow advances in bike lanes.  We just need to stay on this path and we can be miles ahead of the competition (pun intended).

Of course I still say we are short sighted by not having a train to the mountains but you have heard me say that before.  And I’m cheating a little because while I rarely drive my car I do scoot on my vespa quite a bit.   But the most common transit method for me is my bike or my feet.

Living Downtown gives me that option.

One other discussion I had with one of the wedding guests, a Greek Architect currently working in North Carolina and a lifelong friend of the Brides Mother, has stayed with me.  She said she had heard about a city (was it Portland maybe) that decided some 10-15 years ago to pass a law where every new street improvement had to include a bike lane.

She originally thought this measure foolish.  She thought it would create an unconnected jumble of streets, some with bike lanes and some without.  No bike traveler could go across town on a clear path because it was hit or miss throughout the city.

But now 10 years later she saw the wisdom of the measure.  It would have been impossible to get an approval for an expensive bike lane initiative across the city.  But incrementally as part of every street improvement that inevitably would have to happen the grid had been created.  Now the city was almost complete and the cost over time had been managed.  Every street had to be touched eventually and the most used ones were usually worked on sooner than later.

Not a bad idea for Denver.  As long as you know you are going the right direction every step you take will get you closer.

The new hot term is Copenhagenization where Urban Planners focus on the implementation of better pedestrian facilities and segregated bicycle facilities for utility cycling in cities.  Maybe Zurichization could be a focus on implementing incentives to not use a car.

Cheers Denver and pedal or step happily in our city!

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