The debate on the November 24 vote concerning the widening of the highways is going around in circles. For its supporters, wider highways will streamline traffic and relieve congestion on the side roads used by stranded motorists, who go on cantonal roads and in villages.
For opponents, this costly and environmentally impactful work will only postpone the problem. Once the highways are widened, more cars will continue to flow in and create new traffic jams.
In the myth of Sisyphus, the hero pushes his stone to the top of a mountain and it comes back down. Albert Camus made it an illustration of the absurdity of the world and the need to resolve it. In short, he comes to the conclusion that we must imagine a Sisyphus happy in his exhausting task of always starting again. We can transpose this myth to the problem of mobility in Switzerland.
In this debate, one question is rarely addressed: why are we moving so much all the time? Taking a little perspective: why do thousands of people leave Lausanne every morning for Geneva, and thousands more in the other direction, to do more or less the same work? In other words, what makes Sisyphus move?
In principle, our mobility must be infinite, because it is part of everyone’s freedom. Everyone is free to go where they want, when they want. But the result is that every day is a struggle for flow, whether in the car or on the train. Every day, this objective is potentially in danger, because all it takes is an accident, a breakdown or an overload for traffic to jam or stop.
Despite everything, on November 24, there is a strong probability that it will be Sisyphus who wins again. The Swiss people will decide to widen their highways, realizing that it is like carrying the stone to the top of the mountain, before it rolls down. But at least we will have done something.
