Any landlords out there who would like to share their views?
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@Axa delivered a really good post on the highway-subject last night. He put it in the - all overpowering - US-election thread first.
But now it’s neither there nor here. Pity, did it get lost?
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Now on the right thread 
Interesting update via Tages Anzeiger. For some reason the article is free:
This is the translation of the letter form traffic planners and engineers around Switzerland:
Mobility experts recommend rejecting the motorway proposal Zurich, October 30, 2024 As experts from science, planning practice and the public sector, we are convinced that the expansion projects do not solve the problems addressed, have significant negative effects on the environment and society and are inconsistent with modern transport planning:
Lack of overall transport consideration: The planning of the motorway expansions lacks a multimodal long-term perspective. There is currently too little coordination with settlement development and other means of transport. Furthermore, the motorway expansion is not spatially coordinated with the strategies of the cities and agglomerations.
Contradiction with planning principles: According to the federal transport plan, the existing infrastructure must be optimized before the transport infrastructure is expanded. In addition, according to the sectoral plan, the focus in the agglomerations should be on cycling and public transport. In its 2050 transport perspectives, the federal government also predicts a decline in car traffic from 2030 onwards. The current motorway expansion therefore contradicts the federal planning principles.
Inefficient allocation of resources: The high investments in motorway expansion tie up financial resources that could be used for more efficient and sustainable transport projects. Every expansion also leads to high follow-up costs: The maintenance and repair costs rise sharply and must be financed by future generations. With space constraints, Swiss transport planning is also particularly dependent on space efficiency - but motorway expansion promotes precisely the most space-inefficient means of transport.
Lack of sustainability: In the next 10-20 years, the Swiss transport system is facing major technological changes. The expansion projects do not take these future developments into account. It is important to move away from demand-oriented and isolated planning towards multimodal, flexible mobility solutions.
Foreseeable increase in traffic: Empirical studies and analyses of previous expansion projects show that the expansion of motorways only provides short-term relief. In the long term, an expansion of motorways leads to more traffic, which leads to more traffic jams. With the increased capacity on motorways, car traffic is also increasing in villages and towns. No journey begins or ends on the motorway. We are aware that the Swiss transport system is facing challenges. But there are more sensible solutions than the planned expansion of motorways. An overall transport strategy is needed that brings about coordinated settlement and transport development. Today, this is lacking at the federal level.
The following measures in particular will help to solve the traffic problems:
● Strengthening and coordinating inner development: Thanks to inner development, attractive mixed-use districts are being created in which everything important can be reached on foot or by bike. Inner development should also only take place where there is good public transport access.
● New priorities for public transport: If public transport is expanded, this will also relieve the pressure on the roads. Public transport expansions should no longer be based solely on travel time savings, but above all on the existing shift potential.
● Expansion of active mobility: Around 40% of all journeys made by car in Switzerland are shorter than 5 kilometers. Numerous cities around the world show that cycling can contribute efficiently and cost-effectively to sustainable mobility.
The Swiss electorate has clearly approved the bicycle path law and the federal government and cantons are required to implement improvements here promptly.
● Networked mobility: The future of mobility belongs to networking. If the various means of transport are more physically and digitally networked with one another, the existing offer will be improved. New solutions for the shared use of means of transport are emerging that relieve the existing road infrastructure (e.g. traffic hubs, shared mobility).
● Improved traffic management: Thanks to approaches such as mobility pricing and digital solutions, traffic peaks can be broken and the existing infrastructure can be used better.
We are convinced that efficient, sustainable and future-proof mobility is possible. Abandoning the motorway expansion would be an important first step to free up the available financial resources for goal-oriented, sustainable and resource-saving mobility solutions.
I need to update my vocabulary. It’s not congestion pricing, it’s mobility pricing around here.
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Today, Tages Anzeiger publishes some data relevant to the vote next Sunday. It’s about Airbnb and of course is related to the subletting referendum.
There is a very interesting plot, the occupancy rate of Airbnb per month from Jan 2019 to Sep 2024. Of course covid happens but there are some interesting details:
- Interlaken has a strong seasonality. Almost 90% occupancy during summer, 50% in January. Luzern and Bern have a similar trend.
- Airbnb in Basel it looks like money laundering, occupancy rate tops at 50% regardless of season.
The issue here is the rental housing crisis in Switzerland while lots of rental properties are empty. Sometimes capitalism fails to regulate itself. When people chases dreams (or launders money), the market fails.
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voting yes to the Untermiete (subletting) subject will not solve the Airbnb problem as most times it’s the owners offering their flats there. They will still be allowed to do that.
The original idea of airbnb was that people let out their flats when on holidays themselves or just one room while they’re present. The idea was good, unfortunately it went the way many of them do - commercial.
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Indeed, there’s another graphic on the article showing a good fraction of the Airbnbs are commercial operations (more than 20 properties on rent). So, owners know it’s used for Airbnb.
The only measure than apparently work is limiting the number of nights per year to sublet to 30 days per year.
Or setting a minimum period of 1 month. Or both.
or hefty fines like in NY. That demands more control and not all places charge tourist and visitor’s taxes which would be a tool. (Strange, I thought even private foreign visitors have to be reported if they stay longer than just a few days. Which of course nobody did, so a lthought 
)
WRS explaines the Federal vote here:
About a 10 minute listen.
I’m leaning 4 x Non!
One interesting comment was that the Federal Council believes that existing law covers the two rental votes but have gone along only because the right-leaning Parliament has already adopt these laws.
Don’t need more lanes for reasons stated above and,
I hate to tinker, piece by piece, with the existing health care laws. While this change might make sense there are a lot of things I’d like done first: For example a single payer system.
I’ve only just listened to the podcast you posted.
And now the whole thing seems even more ridicoulos. The insurances pushed clients to stay in hospitals overnight? LOL, what nonsense.
My insurance didn’t even know I was having surgery before they got the bill. Also, this would basically mean a) they know it and b) they call me up (in hospital?) and tell me to stay the night.
Are you sure? I believe the insurance companies are advised by the Doctor and/or Clinic/Hospitals as SOP.
Last year I had a hernia operation that I thought afterwards could have been done as an out-patient basis, but they kept me in ‘for observation’ for two nights. My Doctor, who was insisting that I should stay said that they had approval for three nights! I didn’t think to ask by who but …
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Nowadays hospitals get paid a predefined amount based on the diagnose. Yours, hernia, might include 3 nights but the hospital is of course interested in releasing the patients earlier where warranted to reduce costs and make up for the cases that are above-average expensive.
Well of course I can’t be totally sure but I don’t see the hospital announce every surgery to the respective insurance. But one never knows.
In my case I left the hospital a while after I had woken up from anaesthesia and that wasn’t planned differently either.
As to approval for three nights. I guess that is some standard included in those fixed-rates for surgeries. And if they had permission for three nights and wanted you to stay two (and last year you wern’t a youngster, were you, he might have had good reason to keep an eye on you?) only shows that the hospital handles their allowance responsibly, no?
you think they can do “Mischrechnung” (mixed calculation)?
What’s this btw Höhere Prämien, schlechtere Pflege? Nein am 24. November zu EFAS.
It’s funny that they put so much effort setting up the page, ads, etc, I still don’t see the facts
EDIT: Indeed I checked comparis, premiums are really lower in Zurich vs Lugano or Geneve. Is this an attempt to equalize the burden and converge all across the country?
As i understand the burden to pay for hospital stays will shift to Krankenkassen, so that people will be paying directly them with their insurance premiums and then suddenly they will become more responsible on how much they want to go to a hospital, so when operation is finished, they will wake up and think “let me ease the burden of all insurance payers” and go home. And then no one went to a hospital thereafter (wet dreams of insurance ceos), but hospital management sitting one day in an empty corridor thought to himself “nah ain’t no right, gotta get my billion and happily sent a Rechnung to insurance”, upon receiving that Rechnung the system automatically calculated the premiums to cover that, and everyone (hospitals, insurances and politicians) lived happily after.
Then you only understand half the story. The other half is that the Cantons will have to pay for a share of the hospital outpatient costs which - at the moment - they don’t contribute to. This is intended to be cost neutral for both parties, the reality is no-one is sure either way.
The rest of your post is, of course, ungrammatical nonsense.
I also don’t understand the Pflege bit.
And I don’t understand the bit about insurances being motivated to push for outpatient treatments Vs hospitals treatment with the change - I don’t really want insurance to have a say in my treatment like in the US and would prefer for that to stay with a doctor.
Outpatient is almost always cheaper than in-patient. The insurance companies already have a say in your treatment - to expect anything else is not logical. As I understand it, everyone talks about getting premiums down. That is only going to happen if costs decrease.
So why are they not pushing this now?
The idea is they are not pushing it now as the insurance bears 100% of costs and only 50% for inpatient - in the future the shift to 70/30 should mean insurance pushes more for outpatient.
So getting 30% for outpatient Vs 50% for inpatient means insurance pushes more for inpatient?
I don’t believe insurance have a direct say nowadays. Perhaps indirect when influencing the Lamal law and the number of days per procedure but I have not heard of insurance overruling doctor decision.