The Vaudois Grand Council was narrowly open on Wednesday to a reclassification of the 4.5 km section of the A1a motorway between Ecublens and la Maladière (Lausanne) as an urban boulevard. It took into consideration a petition filed in 2022 and with 2,325 signatures in order to send it back to the Council of State, which will have to respond to it, but without constraint.
This petition had the merit of launching the debate on this overloaded motorway sector. The discussions lasted at least 1h30 in the hemicycle. The final vote was decided by one vote, i.e. 65 yes, 64 no and no abstentions. The State Councilor in charge of mobility, Nuria Gorrite, was unfavorable.
Initiative of two organizations “Sauvons Chavannes” and “Action Climat Ecublens”, the text calls for the motorway axis between Ecublens and the Maladière roundabout, southwest of Lausanne, to become a “peaceful urban boulevard”, or an avenue structure integrated into the urban fabric. The process was carried out in collaboration with active-trafiC and with the support of ATE Vaud.
This new boulevard would include entrances and exits to the communes of western Lausanne, which would connect the neighborhoods together. The speed there would be limited to 60 or 50 km/h and the infrastructure would remain a class 3 national road.
The authors of the petition have continued to criticize the “outmoded vision” of the Federal Roads Office (OFROU) which is multiplying motorway projects and defending the creation of two motorway junctions at Chavannes-près-Renens and Ecublens, in as part of the “Removal of the Crissier bottleneck” project. This project is part of the mobility strategy of the Lausanne-Morges agglomeration project (PALM).
“A scar”
Green MP David Raedler defended the subject of the petition at length, denouncing “a scar and a real cut” across an entire part of western Lausanne. “It would also be about restoring the beauty of the IOC headquarters and the Roman ruins in this area,” he argued. “There are no businesses along this section of the A1a which harms the surrounding neighborhoods and degrades their real estate values,” he added.
This “peaceful” boulevard would make it possible to resolve health problems (pollution and noise pollution), to create communication routes to connect the different neighborhoods together on each side, to calm the environment in Chavannesprès-Renens, cut in two , argued other left-wing parliamentarians.
On the right, we were rather reluctant to reclassify this part of the highway. It is not a priority in terms of mobility and infrastructure, some said. Unimaginable to hinder the already very heavy traffic on this section, said others. PLR elected officials considered that the OFROU project was the right solution.
Urban integration study
State Councilor Nuria Gorrite first reminded that such a reclassification was within the competence of the Confederation. “The petition may have the potential to have a dialogue with OFROU,” she noted. But it was fundamentally unfavorable, citing too high a traffic load in this segment (80,000 vehicles per day).
Ms. Gorrite, on the other hand, is not against the idea of ”better organizing the flow of cars”, while avoiding “a massive injection of cars into the different urban districts”. “The role of a highway is to capture cars for as long as possible before getting closer to urban centers.”
She indicated that the Council of State would present next year the development project for the junctions of Ecublens and Chavannes. The minister also announced that OFROU had agreed to finance half of an “urban integration study” of this part of the motorway heading south from Lausanne (reduction in speed, coverage of part of the motorway , etc, but not to consider an urban boulevard as such).
This article was automatically published. Source: ats
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