Hello guys,
how's life?
Do you know where I have to go to get a parking card valid for the blue slots (Zurich)? Is it expensive?

P.S: Awesome, today it's not raining!

Thanks!

Parking card for Blue Zone....is......

240 francs per year
you need to produce car documents
possible from the Kreisburo or the parking office near McDonalds Niederdorf...

Just another small note which is probably worth mentioning. You can park in a blue zone for 1 hour without any form of permit at all - as long as your arrival time is marked by one of those little disc thinggies. You only need to buy a permit if you are a resident and want to park without any limit in a blue zone.

I only mention this because I met someone the other day that thought blue zones were no-go zones for people without permits - in which case parking in and around Zurich would be REALLY difficult

You can actually get up to 3 hours with the disc. If you park after 11:30 you can stay until 14:30.

The rest of the time, you forward the disc to the next half hour when you park so you can actually get up to 1 1/2 hours if you turn up to park just after a half hour.

Gav

Those are the special rules which go over lunch times - I wasn't going to explain the entire thing - so shortened it to 1 hour to make the explanation simple. For the full details people should read the back of the disc. I did this the other day - which was lucky, for the last 6 years I thought the limit was 2 hours and discovered that it was only 1!

Actually come to think of it, the guy who didn't know that you could park at all in a blue zone was a Swiss!!

And if you are brave enough, you can buy one of those automated parking cards with a built in timer, that shift the park time every 1h ... *cough* *cough* of course that *might* be illegal, but anyhow the last time I saw them was on a Electronics Shop on the second floor in Volkiland. Price was about 15chf

You can actually order the parking cards for the blue zone online as well. Check out http://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/internet...t/an/awpk.html (unfortunately all in German). Just fill in the details and print out your parking card. You can pay either by credit card or invoice.

Note that you can only get one for the postcode (Kreis) you live in and the car has to be registered in your name. If you happen to be based in Kreis 1 (where there are no blue zones), you can pick one of the neighbouring postcodes.

What is really annoying though is that by buying a parking card, you are not guaranteed a parking space. I am sure that they have sold heaps more cards in the street I live in than there are parking spaces and if you park your car illegally, you get a fine no matter whether you have a card or not.

Yep - park cards are primarily a way to make dosh I think - either from the residents or from fines.

However, they do serve a useful purpose of preventing outsiders coming in and 'dumping' their car on your street for the day, preventing you getting parked. This is a problem in the UK for people who live near railways stations or shopping centres. If OTOH you live in a quiet area it's a real pain to have to pay to park your car.


Gav

Interestingly enough when I lived in Frankfurt they kept making the zones smaller and smaller and selling more and more permits. The parking situation in some areas became ridiculous and people were very angry that they had to pay and didn't get anything for it. Then someone took the government to court over it and won - the next thing nobody had to by permits because the government wasn't allowed to enforce them. I can't imagine that happening here though...

Hey guys, really thanks.
I didn't expect so much efficience ...

I fear I have to change my italian plate number into a swiss one to get this permit .

no you don't
I had one with an English plate for 12 months

Pop down the Parking office near Maccie D and talk to them

A quick question. Sunday night I am picking up a hire car which I am driving to Munich Monday morning. I need somewhere to park the car overnight in Zurich and dont understand the whole white/blue space thing. Does anybody know the parking rules? or have any suggestions on where I can park sunday night?

Blue line zone is fine until 9am Monday. The blue zones are time limited to one hour with the cardboard clock thingo on the dashboard, Mon-Fri 8am to 6pm, a free for all outside those hours. I do this quite often with weekend hire cars.

Edit - looks like its 90 min so even better, every hire car I have had has a time wheel in the glove box.
http://switzerland.isyours.com/e/gui...s/parking.html

A word of warning.

We were fined for parking outside the blue zone between 6-6.30am (that's what is said on the ticket). That little mistake cost CHF 40.

There is a real lack of parking spaces in our street at night so lots of people were parking outside the blue zone and moving them before 8am.

The morning we got the fine so did a lot of other people!!!!

Not a happy street that morning.

Just want to add that if you have visitors with a car or if you want to park outside your area for a longer period, you can buy day tickets (Tageskarten) at every police station.

Idgie

Also I wanted to know if it is possible to buy the blue zone card for a specific areas (say 8001) for one month?? This is because I am moving and I need blue zone parking only for a month.

AP

do you know how often they check? It's because it would only be 40 francs fine and once in a month might be the easiest "hit" to take, don't you think?

Or I'm sure they will change a parking permit for the new zone without an additional (or large) charge.

Yaa but the problem is I have taken private parking in the new appartment. Don't need blue parking then.
They chekc it often as I got a letter on my card this morning (with RED background) saying my Blue zone has expired and I need to get it renewed before 16th Jan (for some things I wonder how efficient is the swiss govt. department systems, though mostly related to mopping up tax and levy).


AP

options then:
1. ask them; you'll likely be able to get a refund
2. get daily cards
3. take your chance
4. see if you can get your car into your new parking garage

You can get short term blue zone parking permits from your local Kriesbeuro (loal council office). We did it for one month when we moved and our private parking place was still part of a building site.