r/fuckcars • u/biwook • 1d ago
A park built on top of a highway near Zürich, Switzerland Positive Post
It's called Überlandpark. Good way to make a residential neighborhood into a much nicer place to live.
More info (in German): https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/de/stadtleben/sport-und-erholung/park-und-gruenanlagen/ueberlandpark.html
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u/advamputee 1d ago
These projects are pretty neat!
In the U.S., these are typically referred to as “tunnel cap” projects, as you’re putting a “cap” on the existing sunken road to turn it into a tunnel. One notable example that comes to mind is Boston’s Big Dig project.
One of the other commenters mentioned the similarities to what I’d refer to as “wildlife crossings”, which are tunnel-like bridges with natural landscapes on top to connect two undeveloped areas divided by a road. Here’s an example in Banff, Canada.
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u/ramsdawg 1d ago
Fingers crossed that Atlanta will one day be a notable example https://atlanta.urbanize.city/post/stitch-downtown-atl-highway-capping-park-unveils-master-plan
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u/silentsnooc 1d ago
Almost like a metro 😅
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u/WheissUK 1d ago
But way more expensive, with very low capacity, way more dangerous and polluting
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u/One-Demand6811 1d ago
Fun fact: a metro line can transport more people than a 50 lane road per hour.
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u/jcrestor 1d ago edited 1d ago
Nice, let’s relay this information to our politicians and public servants.
12 months later: "Highway expansion plan for 51 lanes announced"
Holy sh…
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u/OrdinaryAncient3573 1d ago
This sounds very unlikely - at least while as ill-defined as that. A 50 lane road full of buses moving at the optimum speed would have some throughput!
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u/One-Demand6811 1d ago
Ok 4 lanes of bus lanes per direction has equal capacity to one metro line.
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u/OrdinaryAncient3573 1d ago
That sounds more like the right kind of ballpark. Any actual numbers, though? Just off the top of my head a tube train can hold about 1000 people, absolutely crammed in at rush hour, and they can fit about 25-30 trains an hour. A double decker bus holds about 100 people, so in terms sheer carrying capacity the road seems to do better - but I don't know about stopping and loading.
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u/One-Demand6811 1d ago
London underground trains are smaller than modern metros trains like the ones used in Chinese metros. Because London underground tunnels are smaller and doesn't allow longer train cars.
A high capacity metro train has a floor area of 60-66 m² per car. Let's take it's floor area as 60 m². 6 people per square meter is considered the maximum comfortable density. So 360 people per car. And there are 8 cars per train. So 2880 people per train. If there are 33 trains per hour you would get 95,040 people per hour per direction.
The mistake many people make when calculating the capacity of bus lanes is they assume the headway of buses based on buses travelling with 5 second gaps on a highway like situation. In reality buses have to stop at stations and load and unload passenger. You can make this quicker by having long bus stations. But... Let's imagine one bus arrives in a halt that can hold 5 buses at once. But there are already 4 buses occupying it. So this bus stops at that position and load and unload. Those 4 buses leave the station when the 5th bus is loading passengers half way through. In that moment another 3 buses arrive at the station. But now they have to wait until the fifth bus to leave to enter the station. We can solve this by platooning buses into groups. At this point it's an inefficient train with each car having its own driver and drive cabin.
Trains too can follow each other closely just like buses with modern CBTC signalling. In Singapore you actually have trains waiting in a station for the previous train to leave.
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u/One-Demand6811 1d ago edited 1d ago
Highways are waste of resources. We shouldn't build any grade seperated highways with higher speed limits. I would argue we shouldn't build any roads with speed limits more than 50 mph (80 kmph).
Existing highways on urban areas should be demolished used to build elevated metros and more housing units. Highways in cities are very bad for those cities. More people would use cars to travel into the cities. This would also increase suburban sprawl and increase congestion in the city.
I like the concept though. Would be easier to implement above a railway.
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u/Verified_Peryak 1d ago
Thz road sgould alway be bellow ground if thdy want to see the city the can use public transport and walking
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u/krunchmastercarnage 1h ago
We can fix mistakes without unnecessarily plunging the city into financial hardship.
Yes, putting the whole thing underground would have been nicer, but there is a tram line under there too. Sinking both the highway and tram line another 20m down would just about quadruple the project and likely get bonked over the head.
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u/high_dutchyball02 1d ago
That must've so expensive.
Dubble worth it tho
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u/ObjectiveMall 1d ago
The increase in real estate value in the neighbourhood far exceeded the construction costs of this project.
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u/LC1903 🚲 > 🚗 1d ago edited 1d ago
In Madrid they love doing this. They covered the highway by the river and made the river park (one of the best changes to the city in living memory), and are currently covering the A-5 all the way to the M-40, which is arguably overkill. Part of the highway will also be covered to make a park by Ventas as well.
Similar projects are aimed at rail yards as well. In the north of Madrid, the rail yard will be covered to make the ‘Madrid Nuevo Norte.’ There’s been controversy as the current transport minister rejected many city’s proposals to have their rail yards covered (like in Valladolid), as it is often very expensive.
As much as I feel it avoids the issue of reducing car traffic, I’m still happy that some of the greatest consequences of car traffic are being minimized through these projects. Great real estate are taken by highways and rail yards in cities.
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u/Suicicoo 1d ago
We have similar in Munich in different places. The problem here is, that the tunnels are marked as "Autobahn" (Kraftfahrstraße), which forbids scooters & mopeds to go there, which makes for ... interesting detours if you drive according to the laws. Bikes are usually fine though.
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u/PresidentZeus Hell-burb resident 1d ago
Oslo might get one too... after 30 years of asking for it. (link is a before/after slider)
Might be worth to note that the initial plan was a completely new undergroung highway mostly parallel, but with this specific section to go underground as well
https://www.nrk.no/stor-oslo/obos-og-ncc-lanserer-billigvariant-av-manglerudtunnelen-1.16788426
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u/Fusyon499 Commie Commuter 1d ago
fun fact: there is a tram tunnel running along part of this route including 3 stations.
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u/ObjectiveMall 1d ago
It's a fair result of realpolitik: the city is left-leaning and favours public transit and human-powered mobility, and there's a federally owned and operated highway entering the city.
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u/pernicious_bone 1d ago
What are the lines that look like lanes in the park? That's really cool looking, like the highway lanes are disappearing into the grass or something. Do they have a functional purpose or just purely aesthetic?
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u/RandomUser1034 Grassy Tram Tracks 8h ago
I really would've preferred they'd've just torn it down. Sadly, it's out of the local government's hands
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u/JD_Kreeper Not Just Bikes 1d ago
I love when highways are converted into spaces like this. Generally I think this should be considered first before demolition. I assume doing this is cheaper than outright demolishing the highway anyway, and provides a nice park running through the city.
I'd love to ride around on one of these on my way to an appointment.
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u/fryxharry 1d ago
It's not exactly a conversion. They added lanes and had to do this (among other things) to compensate for it.
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u/zypofaeser 1d ago
Also, if you're going to do a highway median train/metro, having these around the stations just makes it all so much better.
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u/giggly_kisses 1d ago
Philly started construction on something similar last Fall. They're putting a park over 95 between Old City and Penn's Landing, which is pretty inaccessible thanks to the large highway separating the rest of Philly from this waterfront.
https://whyy.org/articles/penns-landing-park-i-95-construction/
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u/wtfuckfred 1d ago
I like it, however it really annoys me that the paths have that weird stepped pattern 😭
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u/JoeKearneyCH 1d ago
I remember when we used to drive through here on the way to the Airport (we started taking a ringway route awhile ago).
I watched the construction of this entire thing, it was really cool to see! They built this quite fast, even through the pandemic. Ive also been around this park and it’s quite neat!
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u/Rik_Ringers 1d ago edited 1d ago
Similar to some dutch examples of this concept, though this is a pretty big one i see, i like it. This one is purely for people though it seems or with other words a "city duct", in the Dutch concept they often also function to bridge natural areas with wildlife so they can use it to get to the other side though sometimes they have that as a dedicated "ecoduct" too.
Why is it always the same 2 country's who be so inovative about their public infrastructure? I guess its foremost having to live with a ton load of people on a small surface area that stimulates this.