Madrid may be grabbing headlines with its plans for a car-free city centre, but Zurich’s been pushing the anti-car agenda since the nineties. In fact, as part of 1996 clutch of transport policies grandly titled the “historic compromise”, the city agreed to fix the number of parking spaces in the downtown area.
That means the city must account for any new car parks or street spaces by removing spaces elsewhere. In many cases, this has meant that new underground parking garages have freed up space above ground.
This clip from Streetsblog tells the story of the parking policy and a few other anti-car policies the city’s introduced since:
As you can imagine, most residents now use public transport: in an ever-growing city with a stubbornly constant number of parking spaces, you can’t always be sure of finding a spot.
The clip is actually an excerpt of a longer Streetsblog film on Zurich’s anti-car policies. You can watch it here.
