Driving along Zurich’s Rämistrasse and Universitätstrasse has become an exercise in frustration. The route passes ETH Zurich, the University of Zurich, the University Hospital and several busy tram stops. Thousands of students, employees, patients and visitors move through the area every day. Trams stop, passengers get out, pedestrians cross and cyclists travel through the same limited space. Nobody can reasonably expect cars to pass through without restrictions or interruptions.
The problem is that Zurich has gone far beyond what this difficult environment requires. The entire route has been reduced to 30 kilometres per hour, including sections where the restriction is difficult to justify. In practice, the speed limit is almost irrelevant because the traffic lights prevent any continuous movement anyway. Even when the road is relatively quiet, drivers move from one red signal to the next. Whatever coordination may exist between the lights, it is not apparent from behind the wheel.
The situation becomes particularly absurd around the universities and further up the Rämistrasse near Migros. There are several zebra crossings within a very short distance, in some places three across little more than one hundred metres. Each gives pedestrians priority, but there is no system that collects pedestrian movements or gives vehicles a clear phase in which they can proceed.
Instead, people cross in a continuous trickle. One pedestrian steps onto the first crossing. Just as that person reaches the pavement and the driver prepares to move, somebody else approaches from another direction. A few metres further ahead, another person enters the second crossing. By the time that section clears, passengers leaving a tram have reached the third. Cars advance a few metres, stop again and repeat the process.
Pedestrians are not doing anything wrong. They use whichever crossing is closest and have no reason to wait for a larger group. The city has designed the road so that individual pedestrians can interrupt traffic at several consecutive points whenever they arrive. On a busy day, this can leave motorists waiting for minutes without ever receiving a reliable opportunity to pass through the entire section.
A traffic light would be more sensible. Pedestrians could cross safely during a defined phase, while vehicles would receive a corresponding period in which they could move. Instead, Zurich has chosen several uncontrolled crossings that give pedestrians permanent priority but offer motorists no equivalent certainty. The result is not better organisation, but an endless sequence of individual interruptions.
Cyclists add another element of unpredictability. Some move slowly in the centre of the narrow lane, then pull onto the tram tracks to overtake a stationary column of cars caught in traffic and return to the road wherever convenient, often without looking. There are rules for cyclists, at least in theory. Red traffic lights, for example, appear to be based on a colour whose meaning has not yet reached Zurich’s cycling community. Enforcement seems to be of little interest to the city, while motorists are expected to anticipate every possible movement and carry most of the responsibility when another road user behaves unpredictably. The contrast with the treatment of cars is striking. A motorist travelling slightly above the 30-kilometre limit can expect precise enforcement.
This is what makes the arrangement feel less like neutral traffic planning and more like a political statement. Zurich clearly wants fewer private cars, but it avoids saying openly that important routes should no longer serve them. Instead, the roads remain formally accessible while their design makes driving progressively slower and less practical.
If the city no longer wants car traffic on the Rämistrasse/Universitätsstrasse, it should close the roads and defend that decision. Exceptions could remain for residents, deliveries, taxis, hospital access and emergency services. That would be an honest policy whose consequences could be debated. What Zurich currently offers is less transparent. Motorists remain allowed to use the road, but every measure suggests that their movement is no longer considered a legitimate planning objective.
Protecting pedestrians, cyclists and tram passengers is necessary in this area. It does not require a road on which motorists crawl from one interruption to the next without ever knowing when they will be allowed to continue. If the roads remain open to private motor traffic, the city should organise it so that all road users receive clear and predictable phases.
Just my five cents.
//Alex
alexreusch 
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