Zürich: Limmatstrasse

Limmatstrasse (1.6 km, 1 mile) is the main thoroughfare of the neighborhood situated between Zürich Hauptbahnhof, the city’s main railway station and transit hub, and the Limmat river. Through the use of a transit modal filter (N1) at the eastern end and a short transit-only street (A1) section on the western end, through traffic is prevented from using Limattstrasse and is instead diverted along Sihlquai, while tram lines 4, 13 and 17 (some 24 trams per hour in each direction) use it as a through route, alongside local traffic.

These transit modal filters are embedded in a broader circulation plan that prevents through traffic from using inner neighborhood streets as shortcuts by deploying one-way streets and modal filters strategically and frequently dead-ending local streets. For example, a mid-2000s reconfiguration of Limmatplatz, a major transit node that previously worked as a full roundabout, now prevents eastbound traffic from continuing through Limmatstrasse. Similarly, the final segment of Zollstrasse in front of one of Zürich HB's access points was recently converted into a pedestrian plaza as part of the works for the North-South bike tunnel under the station, preventing the street from serving as an alternative eastbound route for vehicular traffic.