The employers’ associations of the Lake Geneva region are mobilizing to defend the widening of several motorway sections in Switzerland, including the one linking Nyon (VD) to Vengeron (GE). A referendum was launched against this project.
We should not talk about developing the national road network, but about upgrading it, Christophe Reymond said on Monday. The general director of the Employers’ Center (CP) recalls that since the 1960s, when motorway infrastructure was built, Switzerland has experienced a demographic explosion.
Sixty years ago, Switzerland had around 5 million inhabitants. “Today there are 9 million of us.” A reality that we can no longer ignore. Population growth has an impact on roads. “Unsurprisingly, there are bottlenecks, particularly on the section between Nyon and Le Vengeron.”
90,000 vehicles per day
In the 1960s, the highway between Geneva and Lausanne was designed for 20,000 vehicles per day. In Vengeron, we currently reach 90,000 vehicles daily. If the section is not widened to three lanes in both directions, the situation will get worse and congestion will increase, says Christophe Reymond.
These repeated traffic jams also have economic repercussions. Deliveries are falling behind schedule and meeting deadlines is becoming problematic for businesses, notes Jean-Marc Demierre, president of the Vaudoise Federation of Entrepreneurs (FVE).
Traffic jams on the highway also have consequences on secondary roads. Traffic flows there and causes nuisance and safety risks in localities, explains Philippe Miauton, who heads the Vaud Chamber of Commerce and Industry.)
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“This section will also make it possible to decongest all the annex roads in the village areas, where traffic is postponed because of traffic jams, which is obviously not pleasant,” argues Philippe Miauton in the 12:45 p.m. in the RTS.
No rail-road opposition
The Geneva and Vaud employers’ associations ensure that they do not oppose different mobility options. In their eyes, both the road network and the rail network must be adapted. Rail-related infrastructure was also designed at the time of a Switzerland of 5 million inhabitants.
Arguments which do not hold, according to the Transport and Environment Association (ATE), at the origin of the referendum “Stop against motorway madness”. For them, the future is to create alternative transport offers.
“These are completely useless measures, because we know that when we widen a road or motorway section, we generate new trips,” explains Caroline Marti, president of ATE Geneva, in the 12:45 p.m. “Which means that just a few years after its commissioning, this section is congested again, so it is ultimately not useful for the objective of the initiators of this project, which would be to relieve congestion on the roads.”
The amounts planned for the widening of six congested motorway sections amount to 5 billion francs. The work must be financed by the Fund for National Roads and Urban Traffic (FORTA), financed by the fuel surcharge, the tax on automobile imports and the motorway vignette.
In principle, the Swiss population will be called to vote on this project on November 24.
ats/kkub
