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ZURICH

Zurich news roundup: Major changes to train services and a car-free project

From a new train timetable that will see a change in services for Zurich to climate protesters and a car-free plan for the city centre, here's a run through of the important news this week from Switzerland's biggest city.

Published: 25 November 2022 11:45 CET
Zurich. main station.
Zurich. main station. Photo by Ellen Jenni on Unsplash

More train connections

Zurich is to see more train connections and services from next month as part of a timetable change.

Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) announced this week plans to expand services with a particular focus on commuters as well as regions popular with tourists.

New direct connections from Eastern Switzerland and Zurich to Interlaken are planned, while an additional night train from Zurich to Prague, via Leipzig and Dresden in Germany will be launched.

The rail service said the number of seats available on the night trains to Hamburg, Berlin, Vienna and Graz will also be gradually increased.

SBB said that demand in commuter traffic has “recovered significantly” since the beginning of the year as the Covid pandemic has eased.

The operator therefore plans more trains between Zurich and Berne, and Zurich and Lucerne in the morning and evening.

SBB also plans to gradually reverse the cancellations of some trains between Zurich and Arth-Goldau from the timetable change until June 11th 2023.

Meanwhile, more direct trains will run between Zurich and Stuttgart.

On the Zurich S-Bahn, extra early morning trains will be introduced in the Limmattal (S12), Oberland (S14 and S15), Pfannenstiel (S16), Furttal (S6) and Bülach (S9) routes. Additional S11 connections will run between Zurich HB and Winterthur in the evening off-peak hours. And the S8 will run once again continuously to Winterthur in the evenings, so there will be no need to change trains in Effretikon.

The new timetable comes into force from December 11th.

Climate activists in Zurich may have to pay up

Climate activists have been staging road blockades in Zurich in recent weeks. And according to the government council, the Zurich cantonal police want to charge the protesters for deployment costs.

The cantonal police will claim compensation from those who caused the roadblocks, the government council wrote in an answer to a question in the cantonal council, reported Blick this week. 

Cantonal councillors from the EVP, SVP and Mitte parties asked in a question how climate activists are being dealt with.

“Participation in unauthorised demonstrations that deliberately block traffic is a punishable offence,” the answer states.

According to the government council, the blockades also entail the risk that emergency services, for example in medical emergencies, may not reach patients in time.

In the past weeks, climate activists from Renovate Switzerland have blocked three roads in the canton of Zurich. The actions took place on Hardbrücke, Bellerivestrasse and the A3 motorway at the Sihlhölzli exit. Similar actions have also taken place in various other Swiss cities.

How high the deployment costs are and how exactly any fines would be implemented remains unclear, according to Blick who asked authorities for clarification. 

READ ALSO: Who are Renovate Switzerland protesters and what do they want?

Essential apps to make life in Zurich easier for international residents 

Whether you’ve just arrived in Zurich or you’ve been here a while but want to know the city better, these 10 apps will help make your life easier. 

Central Zurich to see fewer cars 

Streets around Zurich’s main railway station (Hauptbahnhof) are to become almost car-free in future.

In stages – and by 2050 – the number of cars around the station will be massively reduced, according to a final report by the city’s civil engineering office.

The city wants to create a space that meets the needs of future generations, according to the Tages-Anzeiger.

The planning teams chosen by the city, Vulkan and Van de Wetering, say they want to essentially get rid of road traffic at the Bahnhofplatz, the area between the main railway station and the National Museum, the Bahnhofquai and the Bahnhofbrücke. 

A ring system is planned for bicycles, while two underground bike stations with direct access to the station are planned at Bahnhofquai.

These proposals will be included in the master plan that the city plans to present in 2023. Implementation for car-free zones is planned in stages

Shoppers flock to Zurich for Switzerland’s first Lego store

Switzerland got its first Lego store this week – at the Glattzentrum shopping centre in Zurich.

Lego fans travelled from all over the Alpine nation – and even from neighbouring countries – to be the first customers at the shop.

Some people queued from around 5am to get into the store, which opened on Thursday at 9am, reported Swiss news site 20 Minuten. 

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ZURICH

Growth spurt: What Zurich needs to do to accommodate 2 million residents

Switzerland's biggest city Zurich is becoming more densely populated. With the population expected to pass the 2 million mark in the coming years authorities are devising plans to make it liveable for new residents.

Published: 29 April 2024 15:08 CEST
Growth spurt: What Zurich needs to do to accommodate 2 million residents

At the end of 2023, over 1.6 million people lived in Zurich, Switzerland’s most populous canton.

But this number is far from static.

The population is continuing to grow — so much so, that it will reach the 2-million mark in the coming years, cantonal authorities said in a press release.

This means an increase of around 450,000 people within the next two decades — a 28-percent growth rate, which is “significantly higher than the Swiss average.”

The primary reason for this hike, accounting for 49 percent of the increase, is immigration, followed by births (44 percent) and, to a lesser degree (7 percent), people moving to Zurich from other Swiss regions

On one hand, this is good news because “it is evidence of the canton’s attractiveness and economic prosperity,” authorities pointed out.

On the other, however, this demographic evolution will create a number of new problems and exacerbate the already existing ones.

That is why “strategic decisions are needed on how to handle challenges facing various areas,”  cantonal officials said.

‘Dealing with consequences’

With this ‘growth spurt,’ Zurich will experience many of the same challenges as Switzerland on the whole will, as demographers are expecting the country’s population to swell to 10 million (from the current 9 million) people in the coming years. 

Just as the federal government has started to think about the best ways to prepare the country’s infrastructure for the growing numbers, Zurich’s authorities too will be “shaping this growth” and “dealing with its consequences.”

To achieve this goal, they have launched the ‘Growth 2050” project to begin in the summer, which will  examine “which approach is most suitable for strategically addressing the challenges ahead,” according to the press release.

What exactly does this mean?

While the project’s findings will not be made public until 2027, authorities will have to ensure that Zurich’s infrastructure, such as housing, public transport, as well as school and healthcare systems, will not crumble under pressure, but be able to function optimally — from both the financial and practical perspectives — in the new context.

While all these areas are important, in Zurich’s case, housing appears to be a particular problem as more residents move into the canton.

With  tens of thousands of foreign nationals having settled in Zurich in the past few years, for instance, affordable housing had become scarcer — a situation that has continued to deteriorate and is expected to grow worse as more residents continue to arrive in the future.

READ ALSO: Zurich hit by affordable housing shortage amid record-high immigration

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