Visions for the future of Zurich's main station and central station
As part of the test planning for the area around Zurich's main railway station, Basler & Hofmann's transportation planning experts, as part of the Van de Wetering team, have drawn up a vision for the future of the city's "hypercenter": The area around the station is to be tidied up. Pedestrian traffic is to have top priority and streetcar services are to be reorganized. Generous green spaces are also to be created.
With the test planning, the City of Zurich is responding to parliament's call for strategic planning for the main station/Central Zurich area. Basler & Hofmann is one of the two teams approved for the second stage of the test planning. In addition to the transport planners from Basler & Hofmann, the interdisciplinary project team includes Van de Wetering, Hager Partner and albprojekte.
Most ambitious transportation planning
The "Hyperzentrum" design is ambitious: the already extremely dense and confusing traffic is to be separated, creating space for pedestrians in attractive green open spaces. By concentrating car traffic flows on a few main axes, in particular on a station quay tunnel that is as long as possible, the station square and the station bridge can be largely freed of cars. The elimination of coordination between car traffic and streetcars as well as the new streetcar axis through Neumühlequai will speed up streetcar operations. To optimize streetcar operations, the Central station is to be relocated to the station bridge. In this way, priority can be given to streetcar, pedestrian and bicycle traffic on the main axes and new tree-lined avenues and attractive squares can be created.
Next step: Masterplan HB/Central 2050
The detailed visions of the two project teams will be presented by the city in an online exhibition (see link below). in 2023, the findings from the test planning will flyover into the development of a Masterplan HB/Central 2050. It remains exciting to see how Zurich's "hypercenter" will develop in the coming years.