<story><title>A Swiss Lesson in Enlightened Street Design</title><url>https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2019/09/urban-planning-zurich-public-transit-street-design-traffic/599011/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>coldcode</author><text>This happened in a country with direct democracy, instead of the political complexities in my country (US). It also took a long time to implement (another downfall of US policy making). It&amp;#x27;s also a much smaller country. But I wish we could do this, but it seems unlikely in much of the US to ever move away from car central design.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wereHamster</author><text>It was the canton&amp;#x27;s decision. Direct democracy was involved [1], but at the local level, not nation-wide. People from other cantons in Switzerland had no say in this matter. The people of Zurich have decided that they want that. Zurich is not a big city, by global standards, but any city with similar size can make these decisions, if they want to pursue the same goals.&lt;p&gt;[1] Examples: in 2014 the people of Zurich decided (66% voted yes) to extend tram line 8, in 2017 that extension was opened. And just this year a the tram line 2 was extended to reach further into the suburbs of Zurich, and further work is planed for the next few years. People of Zurich also voted on these extensions, and will continue to in the coming years.</text></comment>
<story><title>A Swiss Lesson in Enlightened Street Design</title><url>https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2019/09/urban-planning-zurich-public-transit-street-design-traffic/599011/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>coldcode</author><text>This happened in a country with direct democracy, instead of the political complexities in my country (US). It also took a long time to implement (another downfall of US policy making). It&amp;#x27;s also a much smaller country. But I wish we could do this, but it seems unlikely in much of the US to ever move away from car central design.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zhdc1</author><text>The Swiss take their roads seriously (I get to hear about it every night : ) ).&lt;p&gt;Other points not mentioned:&lt;p&gt;Switzerland has - effectively - no domestic car industry, so there were never any special interest groups with economic clout pushing to get rid of public transportation ala the US.&lt;p&gt;Zurich is not amenable to cars, and never will be because of how it&amp;#x27;s laid out.&lt;p&gt;The highways outside of the city are also designed in a way that makes capacity expansion extremely expensive and unfeasible. The Swiss need a way to limit or stop automobile usage growth, and heavily pushing public transportation is an effective way to do this.</text></comment>