Could someone help with the traslation of Feierabendverkehr. I've tried my usual translation tools but they are coming up with no hits. Thanks.

it's when everyone buggers off early and blocks the road, I'd say.

Feier abend
and
Verkehr

Celebration evening
and
traffic

So basically the madness of everyone leaving before a public holiday.

That makes sense, I have to be in the middle of Zurich for 19:00 on Friday & it is on the details letter. Cheers.

http://www.dict.cc/german-english/Fe...ndverkehr.html

Feiertag -> holiday, so "holiday evening traffic" - assume jams.

Feierabend is quitting time, not necessarily before a holiday. Feierabendverkehr is the increase in traffic that flows through the streets (or not) around then. You'd say rush-hour traffic in English.

That's what I though too but as Friday is not a holiday it didn't quite work.

Evening rush-hour ..

Feierabend is simply the term used for the end of the working day. Next time you're in a shop just before closing and one of the staff calls to you "feararbig" they're just asking you to hurry up and leave as they wish to do the same.

which in Bern equates to more than 10 cars at the traffic lights .... bliss

In Zurich it's really only a few hundred. Not at all like the tens of thousands of cars in Seattle, or the times it took me two hours to drive under 10 miles. LA's far worse though.

I still say, there's pretty much no traffic in Switzerland, comparatively.

I agree with evening rush hour.

Yupp, same in Basel... 1 car is heavy traffic, 2 cars are a traffic jam and 3 cars are reason enough to introduce road-pricing.

dawiz

we were stuck in Seattle traffic for about 4 hours after a Mariners matinée.
I really don't know what all the fuss about constant traffic jams and the call for road-pricing is about. I drive to Basel everyday in rush hour and never have more than a 10 minute delay due to traffic.

The traffic jams on the A3/A2 are something else but they're caused by temporary roadwork and will be gone by May.

So, seriously: the only reason why Basel absolutely must have road-pricing is plain old cash. They think that way they can get back at all those who move to Baselland because taxes are lower there.

dawiz

I'd heard it used mostly on a Friday when everyone was bombing off for the weekend, and the roads were busy.

But in another context, I have occasionally been asked "Hast Du Feierabend?" which never quite made sense. "Have you finished work for the day?" makes much more sense.

Hmm, then it's the Swiss-German term for "Beer-thirty"

When living in Germany, I understood that "Feierabend" meant the time to leave work at the end of the day. There was a guy in my office whose surname was Feierabend, and the Germans thought it was hilarious (showing that they do have a sense of humour, even if it is inpenetrable). This was in Munich, and the guy was an Ossi, so that might have had something to do with it...

I once read the Grapes of Wrath while stuck in a traffic jam in LA, when I say read I mean from start to finish.

I had an experience like that once. I drove from Santa Barbara to San Diego the day before Thanksgiving, when I was in grad school. I left at about 5pm, and arrived about 3am.

6 Oclock rush-trafic jam