A once proud street
03/08/2023
Of course, a street cannot be proud in the strictest sense, but some streets do have great significance. This was also the case with Baslerstrasse in Zurich, which runs from Zurich to Altstetten and is a parallel street to Hohlstrasse or Badenerstrasse. Its name honors the big city on the Rhine, so it is not a side street by name alone.
The photo above shows this street in 1967, from the junction with Herdernstrasse towards the city center. There are trees to the left and right, there is plenty of space for the few cars, and to the left and right there is even enough room for parking spaces and sidewalks, as we call sidewalks in Switzerland.
Around 25 years later, this second picture was taken from the air by Swissair Photo AG. You can see the same section of road in the detail. In the meantime, cars have gained the upper hand, with two lanes each leading to the city center and from there towards Altstetten. I can still remember this bend myself and the following straight, which, if my memory serves me right, could be driven on at 60 km/h back then. After all, this was a transit route.
That was a long time ago. At some point, the road was reduced to one lane each way and finally to 30 km/h. And this is what the road looks like today.
We are looking at the same stretch of road, on the right you can see the sloping inn that was also visible in the other photos. Magnificent cycle paths have been painted on the left and right.
If you follow the road further towards the city center, you will see this picture. The once four-lane road has become a single-lane road. Car traffic is now only permitted in the direction of the city center (i.e. away from the camera), still at a speed of 30 km/h. There is a two-metre-wide cycle path on the right and a three-metre-wide cycle path on the left in the opposite direction. The whole thing is called a "preferential cycle route", basically a kind of cycle highway. The cars that used to drive out of the city here now have to find a new route, and you can no longer get towards the city center either, because at the end of the road you have to turn left and are led directly onto the Hardbrücke to Zurich North.
The new system has not been fully thought through, even for cyclists, as some of the old traffic dividers have remained and will probably lead to bottlenecks and unpleasant encounters between the increasing number of cyclists, who are riding ahead with ever more extensive equipment (think cargo bikes), and motorists.
The funny thing is that the road from 1967 or 1991 would have had enough space for really generous cycle lanes and lanes for cars in both directions. But with multiple expensive (and in retrospect pointless) conversions, the space for clever solutions was basically taken away. None of this is a coincidence, of course, but is in line with the city government's strategy of displacing cars and becoming a metropolis with primarily public and silent two-wheeled traffic.
Now, as a part-time cyclist, I am of course all for safe and fast cycle paths through the city, but you have to ask yourself whether the Baslerstrasse example has really achieved the optimum in terms of finance and safety. There are similar projects all over the city of Zurich.
Perhaps our classic cars with combustion engines will run out of road rather than being banned or more severely restricted?
P.S. By the way, not far from this road, a kilometer race took place in 1927 that drove the population and spectators to enthusiasm. Those were the days ...
