Did you know that Switzerland has around 65'000 kilometres of hiking trails? That's about 1.5 times the circumference of the earth! A huge number of municipalities and volunteer organisations maintain the hiking trails and offer hikes in all the cantons.
Swiss Working Dads Get Short Shrift; Street Parking Prices Rise Again; FCB Celebrates Tournament Win; BLT Banner Year in Public Transport
News on 19 May 2015
In a recent study that seems to contradict Switzerland's newfound status as the happiest country on Earth, Swiss men rank low for paid paternal leave. Swiss-English newsmagazine TheLocal reports that according to the organization Travail.Suisse 52% of workers covered by collective employment agreements had just a single day of paid paternity leave - the mandatory Swiss minimum. The survey included 46 such collective agreements representing 1.5 million employees. Only 3 percent of male workers were eligible for more than ten days, compared with a minimum maternity leave of 14 weeks for women. These statistics seem miserly when compared with the rest of Europe and especially the Scandinavian countries. At the other extreme, in Sweden, parents can share a total of 480 days of paid parental leave when a child is born or adopted. In this context, Travail.Suisse is now publicly calling for a minimum of 20 days paternity leave paid at 80% of normal wage to be funded by the same system which funds maternity and military service leaves. Perhaps not surprisingly, the study also suggested that larger private and public employers tended to offer the most generous paternity leaves in Switzerland, with the exception of Swiss Post that only offers 2 days.
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Since the new pedestrian zones for Basel's Innerstadt have been implemented all of the designated and available parking spots for motorists have been removed and moved to a ring of streets outside the zone. And now, in a move sure to irk those motorists that need to park overnight in those spots, they will also no longer be free. Adding insult to injury is the fact that in some cases the overnight parking rate of 3 francs per hour would mean having to shell out 33 francs to park during the night hours of 7pm to 6am. In a final maddening blow- the parking meters assigned to the once-free spots, by design are meant to exclusively accept coins as payment. For those thinking that they might be better off ignoring the tariff, be forewarned, the fine for unmetered parking is at least 100 francs - and meter-maids have been out in force. When the BaselStadt office of Mobility's Construction and Transport Department was contacted for comment on why payment was made to be so difficult, the response was that the Pedestrian Zone referendum specifically mandated coin-only payment options for parking meters surrounding the zone. Jasmin Furstenberger, spokeswoman for the department, continued that the high tariffs are also part of the mandate. By design, the high costs encourage those parking to move their vehicles and can be adjusted remotely by authorities based on demand for parking.
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In case you missed all the commotion on Sunday evening in Basel, FCBasel won its 18th Swiss League title -and the victory also marked the sixth consecutive title for the club. The sounds of car horns, fireworks and chants could be heard throughout the city, but especially in the barfusserplatz area where the celebrations were at their peak. The game which finished with a nil/nil tie left Basel at the top of the tournament heap. Fans and supporters could be seen marching throughout the streets blocking thoroughfares on their way to the revelry in central Basel. If you were lucky enough to have been watching the game in the Gare Du Nord free celebratory beer was on tap after the game. The BVB, one of Basel's tram line operators put emergency plans into effect to deal with the large masses of people blocking its rails in the inner part of the city.
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Basel Land Transport or BLT had another banner year of passenger traffic seeing total passenger count at 52.7million people carried, 840,000 or 1.6% rise over the previous year. The company, in highlighting its operating results, pointed to success with the track expansion on its tram line between Ettingen and Flüh and its new Mobile App for ticketing. The BLT tram line 11, well-known among BaselStadt and BaselLand Expats as the line servicing the International School and its surrounding communities also has the distinction of carrying the largest number of passengers of any public transport in Northwest Switzerland, having served 21.7 million passengers in 2014. The mobile app - called TNW Tickets - now available for android and iPhone devices allows for on-the-fly purchase of tickets without the need for coins generates a QR code for the device that can be inspected by conductors. According to BLT by last April the app had been downloaded more than 25,000 times and close to a quarter of a million tickets had been sold using the system. Reporting a net profit of almost 3 million francs on gross operating revenue of 95 million francs for the 2014 fiscal year the BLT now employs 435 people.