Transit Tangents

Transit Tour: Zurich

• Louis & Chris • Season 3 • Episode 101

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We ride Zurich’s entire transit ecosystem in one day, testing how trams, S-Bahn, buses, funiculars, a cog railway, an aerial cable car, and a lake ferry connect... without a subway. Along the way, we unpack why Zurich never built a U-Bahn and how integration, signage, and frequency keep the city moving.

• highlights from Polybahn to funiculars
• Dolderbahn’s rack system
• Zurich tram network scale, history, and headways
• Stadelhofen’s capacity squeeze and planned fourth track
• aerial cable car to Felsenegg and integrated ticketing
• winter ferry service on Lake Zurich and trip trade‑offs
• network design trade for no U‑Bahn and city size context
• zone passes, app tickets, and excellent wayfinding
• lessons for US cities from Zurich’s layered network

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SPEAKER_01:

This week on Transit Tangents, we ride every form of public transportation in Zurich. This is part three of our European tour. We rode buses, trains, trams, a ferry, a funicular, and even an aerial cable car. This is one of my favorite episodes we've ever done, so enjoy.

SPEAKER_00:

We are now in Zurich. This is the last stop of our European tour. We started in Vienna. We took a train to Munich. And then yesterday uh morning we took a train from Munich to Zurich, arriving in the afternoon. The train was about three and a half hours long or so. We actually had a really nice train. I think it was the ECE. So that was a really, really good experience. And then we just sort of spent the afternoon exploring a little bit of Zurich. And now we are here in the uh Hopbenhof. Hopbenhof. Hopenhoff, yeah. Hoppenhof. The central station in downtown Zurich. What we've noticed so far, tons of trams, tons of um electric buses all over the city. But one interesting thing about Zurich, there is no underground, which we're gonna talk about a little bit later.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep. Uh on top of that, there's also a pretty extensive S-Baum network. There are ferries. We may or may not be able to catch one today. They run more frequently in the summer. In the winter, it's a little bit hit or miss if we'd be able to catch one or not. So and this train station, beyond what we can see kind of behind us, is really big underground as well. There's a whole other set of platforms uh underneath us. Um you're gonna hear a lot more from Chris today than you are gonna be from me. Unfortunately, I am not feeling well if you can hear it. Um yes, yeah, I'm sorry. So if you're wondering, that is that is why.

SPEAKER_00:

From here though, we are going to head, we're gonna head out of the train station, and we're actually gonna check out something that's a little bit more of a unique form of transit here in Zurich. Perfect. Alright, so we came from the central station in Zurich, and we told you we were gonna check out something that's a little more unique to this town. And as you can see behind me, this is the upper station of what they call the Polybon. Now, the Polybon is a funicular, it's one of two funiculars in Zurich. There used to be three, which we'll also talk about a little bit later. But this is a really cool experience being able to take it from the lower station where it comes out of the building and sort of goes over the street, and then you ride it up just for, I don't know, a minute or so until it gets to the north station, and that's where we are now. This polybon opened in 1886, so it's been operating for 136 years. So a really cool piece of transit history in Zurich.

SPEAKER_01:

As Chris mentioned, Zurich actually has two funiculars like this one in operation today. The other is actually slightly longer with three midpoint stops at cross streets as it ascends a steep hill through a mostly residential neighborhood. At its base station, it's connected via buses and trams, and at the top by another bus. It saves residents a ton of time from walking down as the hillside is very steep, requiring major switchbacks on the road. Zurich also offers quite a few staircases winding between homes and businesses in the hillier parts of town, giving folks a more direct path between destinations as long as they can handle the stairs. So from our last stop we walked for a little bit and then got on board another tram. Uh these trams are everywhere. There's we were just saying there's more trams we've seen anywhere by far.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, looking at the sign, it was a headway like every two minutes. There's a new tram.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's pretty crazy. So um from here though, we just uh got off at what is called the Dolderbahn, which is essentially like a cog railway. So we're gonna ride that up to the top and then we'll fill you in a little bit more details on it when we get there. Before we get to the Dolderbahn, I just wanted to give a little bit more info on Zurich's tram network. In total, there are 15 tram lines in the city with over 118 kilometers of tracks. The city got its first tram line in 1882, which was actually pulled by a horse. Just a few years later, though, in 1894, the first electric tramways opened in the city. Early tram lines were operated by private companies before eventually being combined into a unified service run by the city. Today the network features 437 stops around the city and integrates well with the city's S-Bahn and bus system.

SPEAKER_00:

Alright, as we said, we arrived at the Dolderbahn station where we took what is a uh called a rack railway, or people in the US may refer to it as a cog railway, up a pretty steep hill to this terminal station. There's a hotel here and a couple recreation things. What's really cool about this is it passes through a little bit more of a park foresty part of the city, and there are stops in between where people are actually using this as viable transit to move from lower in the valley up the hill to these stations. What's really cool about this, and I don't think we've really talked about a cog railway in the past, is that on the tracks themselves there are uh grooves and teeth and a cog wheel underneath this tram that allows it to climb grades up to 100%, which is a 45-degree angle. So they're really good for going up really steep mountain areas. It's hard to tell just how steep this is, but as we said, these cog railways they can go at 100% grades or 45-degree angle, so you can definitely feel it as you stand on it, and you can see it out of the window.

SPEAKER_01:

Despite the Dolderbahn being single-tracked for the majority of the route, multiple cars do operate on it. There are a few very small sidings that allow rail cars to pass each other that are basically perfectly timed exactly how you would imagine, considering we were in Switzerland. Rather than traditional switches, however, it seems as if the tracks actually bend from one direction to the other when the time comes. It's pretty interesting to watch. After reaching the bottom of the Dolderbahn, the plan was to catch a tram, but first we noticed a bendy bus with not one but two bends in it. Like the double bend. I don't think I've ever seen that.

SPEAKER_00:

I've seen it not here.

SPEAKER_01:

I've seen it in uh Argentina and Mexico, like VRT type stuff. From the Dolderbahn, we took a short tram ride, only a stop or two down the 11 to Stothelhoven. This is a major hub for the city of Zurich, connecting the S-Bahn, trams, buses, and other regional rail. The train station is actually the seventh busiest in all of Switzerland, with 80,000 passengers using it daily. During peak hours, it sees a whopping 40 trains per hour on its three tracks and is seen as one of the biggest bottlenecks in Zurich's S-bomb system. Plans are underway to add a fourth track as the station has reached capacity. Construction could begin as early as 2027. Beyond how busy the station is, it's also very interesting to look at as it's carved into the hillside with trains dipping into tunnels as they leave and enter the station in either direction. We boarded an S-bond train from Stadelhoven back to Zurich Hauptbenhof. I thought Swiss trains were never late.

SPEAKER_00:

From the central station, we meandered around and is a bit of the maze in there.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh until we found the platform we were looking for, platform 21, where we jumped on the number four S-bond to take it a little ways out of town.

SPEAKER_01:

And that's where we are now. So we are in Adelsville. Probably saying that wrong, Adelsville, maybe. But we're here because we're gonna be riding our first piece of aerial transit on the show.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, which is pretty amazing. We've talked about gondolas and aerial trams and cable cars. Our logo, I don't have it on me today, but our logo is the cable car. Um, so yeah, it's really cool that we finally get to do this uh in person.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and we'll see. It is a little cloudy outside, as you can tell. Uh, we'll see if we get any views, but either way, we're gonna go walk up the hill and go check this out.

SPEAKER_00:

One thing we have noticed uh since being here is that the signage in Zurich is just top-notch. Like, really, really good. What we've noticed in other cities like Vienna and Munich, the signage was also pretty good, but here it is literally on every piece of transit. We've seen it on the streetcars, we've seen it on the S-Bahn, we've seen it on the uh Dolderbahn, and we saw it on the Polybond.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh so everything has really up-to-date by the minute uh signage.

SPEAKER_01:

With like digital, you know, upcoming arrivals, what the connections are gonna be once you arrive there, really impressive stuff.

SPEAKER_00:

So we have made it to this uh cable car that's gonna take us up to Felseneg, which is sort of this overlook um over the Zurich area. Uh, I think this is officially called the Lufsilbahn. I know I'm gonna mess that up or have messed that up. Um, but this cable car system opened in the 1950s and is actually integrated into the Greater Zurich transportation network. So when you buy your ticket that works on the S-Bahn and all the other trains, uh, you can actually use it for this as well. Looks like we're having some erosion issues up here. Seeing that, yeah. That's kind of pretty.

SPEAKER_01:

After we made it to the top of the Luftzeelbahn or the cable car, found uh that there is a nice little restaurant up at the top. Uh, had some warm soup. It's a little chilly today, a little sprinkly outside, so that felt very good.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's called Felseneg. So if you ever end up here, it was very nice.

SPEAKER_01:

Really, really good pumpkin soup. And the views are insane.

SPEAKER_00:

The views are incredible. I mean, you can see the entire lake leading up to uh to downtown Zurich and all the little little towns in between. So from here, what we're gonna try to do is take the cable car back down to the town. From there, we're going to see if we can grab a bus, which will probably require a transfer to another bus to end up at a ferry terminal on the lake. And our goal is to be able to take the ferry back to Zurich. Uh, it's a little tricky with the weather and the winter, so we'll see what happens.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, yeah, the timing may or may not work, so uh plan is subject to change. Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

But luckily, if it doesn't work, there is a train station nearby, and we can take that right back into the city center.

SPEAKER_01:

We boarded the Luftzeelbahn, rode back to the base, and made the short walk back to the S-Bahn station that we arrived at. Connected to the rail station is a small bus station as well, where we waited a few minutes to catch the 156 bus. Bus number one was successful, and we're hoping to catch a second bus here now, which will be in about uh eight minutes-ish, maybe.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh it'll be here in, well, it's 240 now, so it'll be here in 13 minutes. 13 minutes, okay. So we'll catch the 165 in 13 minutes. We're gonna take that down toward um an area called uh Clinchburg, I believe, and there is a ferry station.

SPEAKER_01:

This little route that we've taken, definitely not common. We're kind of like in between areas right now. I think that this is a route that people wouldn't normally take based on the kind of nature of what it looks like. So interesting to test out. That was our first bus, so um pretty standard, clean.

SPEAKER_00:

I would call this, we're definitely in the Zurich suburbs. Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. But uh we'll keep you updated when our bus comes.

SPEAKER_00:

We made a mistake. Made a slight mistake. I saw the bus coming and uh didn't realize it was the wrong one.

SPEAKER_01:

And we're back exactly where we started. But we found out that there's another ferry leaving from a different place that doesn't require a bus transfer. So we're gonna take that one instead. We will update you from there. Barring other mistakes.

SPEAKER_00:

Are we gonna go that way?

SPEAKER_01:

Chris really wanted to just see this bus shelter again. Look at it, so nice. Wanted to give you the from the bus view as well. So we were talking about how good the signage is everywhere. And the main reason that we actually missed that bus was the the two routes that run through that area are the 156 and the 165. Uh I don't think we need to explain why we got on the wrong bus there. So uh there was it did say it on the sign. It said it. Uh we had the wrong one.

SPEAKER_00:

But so we've ended up in Thalville, which is a slightly different town than what we planned. It's a little further south from Zurich. Uh, but our goal now is to walk over to the ferry terminal and try to catch it in about 20 minutes. Yeah. And that should take us right back to central Zurich.

SPEAKER_01:

Zurich offers a wide variety of ferries, both on the lake as well as on the Lamotte River. On this trip, given where we were, this was a good opportunity to try one of the Lake Zurich ferries. In the summertime, they can operate essentially hourly service, but in the colder months the service levels drop significantly. We had about 20 minutes to enjoy the views from shore before our boat that would take us back to downtown Zurich pulled up to the dock. Important to note that this is definitely not the fastest way back to town, the trains would have made the most sense for that, but we wanted to get a feel for what the ferry service was like. For any jet lag fans, I am fighting the urge to take the S-Bahn all the way out to Zoog. So we boarded our ferry in Thalville. Uh right on time, actually. We were getting, or Chris at least was getting skeptical. I had faith in the Swiss that it would arrive on time, but we weren't seeing any boats, so uh these do not run as frequently this time of year, so uh we were lucky, I think, to be able to catch one in the summer. They are much more frequent, though.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, but not too bad. About a 30-minute ride from Thalville into downtown Zurich. Uh so we'll get there and uh see what is left to explore. Alright, we have made it back to the downtown Zurich area. Um, probably the nicest ferry that both of us or either of us have been on.

SPEAKER_01:

I would say definitely for me. I've never seen anything like it. It was, and I'd be very curious to see, the upstairs was first class only. So we were we were lowly down with the second class folks, but uh, if second class tells us anything about what first class is, first class was probably pretty fancy. From the ferry dock, we took some time to walk around the narrow streets in historic downtown Zurich before taking some time to reflect on the day.

SPEAKER_00:

We are finishing up a very, very full day in uh Zurich. We hit so many different types of transit today. I think uh in total we counted seven. A lot. Uh we hit the streetcar, we hit the S-bond, we hit a bus, we hit a funicular, we hit a cog railway, uh, we hit a cable car, and we hit a ferry. So Zurich is the Did you get the buses in there? I got a bus in there too.

SPEAKER_01:

We even got the same bus three times. Yeah, it was great. Yeah, yeah. Yes, yeah. Uh I mean overall, it was uh uh it was a little chilly today, but overall the impressions from Zurich were really nice. Trams were super frequent. It was really cool to see some of the more unique elements to their transit network not just be unique, but also be like real modes of transit that people were using on their day-to-day commutes, which was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and something you may have noticed is missing is that there is no U-Bahn here. And so at the top of the episode, we did say we were gonna get back to this. Um, one of the reasons why there is no U-Bahn, it was uh attempted to uh pass legislation to build one twice, once in the 60s and once in the 70s. But even at that time, the street tram network and the bus network was really well developed and covered most of the city. Also, uh, as soon as the airport was built, there was pretty decent connections there, and the people in Zurich actually felt like it wasn't necessary. And it being a smaller city where it's sitting at less than 600,000 people in the city proper, uh, they felt like the size of the city maybe didn't even warrant the investment that an underground um that an underground would require. And what we've seen today kind of makes sense.

SPEAKER_01:

Kind of makes sense. Yeah, and even like the gaps or maybe the parts of the city that would have been on the edge of an U-Bahn network are pretty effectively covered by the S-Bahn and just other regional trains coming in too. So uh when you factor in all of those different layers, it didn't really feel like anything was missing.

SPEAKER_00:

No, and I assume the construction cost too for trying to go down through some of the hills here to connect to stations would have also escalated the cost pretty pretty greatly. But all in all, uh very, very impressed with Zurich. Similar to the other cities that we've been to on our European travels, the ticketing system is very easy. You download the local app and you can buy a 24-hour pass that covers all modes of transit. Uh, also in you know a single zone. So for instance, here you have the the more tourist decentralized zone, or you can do all zones, which allow you to really hit a lot of these uh towns and and other modes of transit that are on the outskirts of the Zurich region.

SPEAKER_01:

What was interesting too is that it actually also worked for the uh aerial like cable car, it worked for the ferries, so nice to see that it works across all modes, uh including those more unique ones. So this wraps up our first European tour with both of us on the ground here. Again, we have hit Vienna, Munich, and now Zurich. Uh tonight we're gonna be parting ways. Uh, I'm gonna be headed back to Vienna. From Zurich, I was actually taking a night train back home. The train ran from Zurich all the way to Berlin, but I got off one stop earlier in Leipzig. We'll be doing an episode about night trains soon, so I'll include more from that and we'll talk about the opportunity for night trains in the US. If you're not already subscribed, consider doing so so you don't miss it. Uh Chris has got one more stop on his trip and then we'll be headed back to Texas. Um, but this was really fun to be able to, you know, have Chris here and talk about all these different cities, and we'll have a lot of comparisons to make now in our content when we're talking about the United States, more content talking about here in Europe, to be able to kind of pull some lessons learned in each place and and yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, if you have suggestions for maybe your part two uh whenever I come back to the continent, that would be great. Uh maybe we can have another another uh three or four cities that we can hit on a nice big grand transit excursion.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely, and uh definitely stay tuned. We have a lot more fun content coming. Uh Chris has got all sorts of fun things lined up in the US. I'm also working on meeting with different folks uh in Germany in particular, but other spots in Europe as well. Uh so if you want to support the show directly to make sure that we can both together and separately go off and bring more transit-related content to you. Uh, it helps us out quite a bit to support the show directly via our Patreon. Uh you can also buy us a coffee, uh, you can check out our merch store. And if you can't support us financially, the best ways are just subscribing, liking, commenting, and sending the show to a friend who is probably a transit nerd like you.

SPEAKER_00:

And with all that being said, thank you so much for watching and enjoy the rest of your Transit Tangents Tuesday.

SPEAKER_01:

Cool.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh wow, and it ends with the bells in the end. The bell's ringing, the swans were behind us, the trains. Yes.