Sunday Movie: Zürich Walk and Funiculars

A walk around Zurich interviewing transportation engineering professor Norman Garrick. (Active Towns) Two rides on very different funiculars at 2:05 and 52:23. The first part of the video is the old town and, at the other end of the first funicular, a university. The middle part after that is a walk through a cemetery, which may be a little slow, but at 39:07 he talks about what North American cities can learn from Zurich. Other points talk about Zurich's tramways and signal priority (44:17), trolleybuses (46:08), and a suburban tram line (56:30). What strikes me the most is how Zurich puts its inhabitants' convenience and non-car mobility first; then everything else falls into place. And when it has a specific problem, it keeps trying different things until something works, rather than pointing fingers and not doing anything. Zurich's population is 450K; the urban area" is 1.5 million; and the metropolitan area is 2.1 million (defined as within an 80-minute drive from the airport).

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