Letter of November 5 | 24 hours

The real cause of saturation

It’s still surprising that no one talks about the main cause of the saturation of highways and roads in general, not to mention crowded public transport and the cruel lack of housing: mass immigration since the adoption of the Peace Accords. Schengen.

Some official figures from 2023 to support this, according to the State Secretariat for Migration: “In 2023, net immigration to Switzerland stood at 98,851 people, an increase of 17,506 people compared to 2022. Persistent demand from the labor market is mainly responsible for this increase, with foreign nationals making a significant contribution to reducing the labor and skills shortage. At the end of 2023, 2,313,217 foreigners resided in Switzerland on a permanent basis.”

Almost 100,000 people (!!) – this considerable number of arrivals in Switzerland each year will logically impact the desired objective of relieving motorway traffic. In the meantime, traffic on the main and secondary roads is likely to increase massively in the long term after the creation of a third motorway lane between “Le Vengeron” and Nyon. The motorway exit at Coppet, already completely overloaded during rush hours, will literally become impassable. As a motorist, I should welcome the highway changes, but common sense tells me that this is an extremely expensive and essentially unnecessary move for the taxpayer.

A bit of “realpolitik” in Bern would be on the agenda, namely the introduction of an immigration system like that of Canada or Australia. A Switzerland of 10 or 15 million in the long term is not desirable when you really think about it. I don’t think I’m alone with this perspective on the overall situation.

Peter Colberg, Commugny

Face the facts and stay consistent

Opponents of increasing highway capacity point out that this will ultimately lead to increased traffic and lead us into a vicious circle. Supporters counter that the increase in traffic is due to population growth. Both are right. Consequently, when the time comes, it will be a question of supporting the initiative which aims not to exceed 10 million inhabitants in Switzerland. And for now, we must say no to the extension of the motorway network, develop public transport as much as possible and encourage everyone to question their mobility.

In a finite world that draws its sustenance from non-extensible soil, the endless growth of population and its needs leads to a dead end. Other countries undoubtedly still have some reservations. Ours has reached saturation. We are at the end of a system. On the right and on the left, the parties are struggling to come to terms with this obvious fact. As for the peasant organizations which are rightly concerned that our soil barely feeds half the population, but support the extension of the highways, they are losing all coherence and credibility. Their troops should not follow them.

Jean-Paul Cavin, Penney-le-Jorat

Tell me where to look

Please tell me where to look to reassure myself that we can definitely get more use out of our car.

The information? Images of boats in flooded streets no longer surprise me, images of smoke from fires crossing thousands of kilometers no longer surprise me, mudslides no longer surprise me. The doctors? They say that pollution causes 2,300 premature deaths per year in Switzerland.

Finances? We pay to bring water to the herds by helicopter, we pay to repair what was destroyed by floods and fires, the price of wheat has soared, cultivable areas are threatened by rising waters. It is predicted that 1 million deaths per year will occur each year between now and 2050 due to global warming, which would cost $490 billion.

Animals? There are extinct mammals, extinct insects, extinct fish. The mountains? They were bursting with snow all year round, glaciers, lakes. Please tell me where to look to feel good about driving more.

Or say no to highway expansion.

Cécile Ryser, Geneva

As many opinions as experts

Concerns the article “More than 350 mobility experts oppose motorway expansion» (“24 hours” of October 30).

The article of October 30 emphatically announcing that 340 so-called mobility experts are opposed to enlargement deserves a response from the shepherd to the shepherdess. First of all, it is false to assert that there is unanimity of doctrine on these projects, far from it. Furthermore, the signatories deliberately ignore all the preparatory work carried out by their counterparts from the Confederation and the cantons concerned. Because yes, these projects are studied, thought through and coordinated, as we know how to do so well in Switzerland.

Are these experts really credible by signing a declaration of a few lines when hundreds of specialists have been working on these projects for years? For the record, these “experts” are the same ones who opposed the Geneva bypass motorway, the use of the Morges emergency lane, the construction of the Poya bridge in Friborg and to the drilling of the Gubrist tunnel in the north of Zurich.

All these projects are unanimous today because they have improved the lives of local residents, increased road safety and streamlined traffic. Clearly, the policy of “yaka” and “we have to” has a bright future ahead of it as long as it does not involve proposing solutions. By the way, what are these right-thinking experts sitting in their chairs proposing?

Develop rail? Switzerland has never invested as much in rail as today, to the point where it is not money that is lacking, but engineers and specialized workers, says the CFF boss. Introduce urban tolls or tax individual mobility based on traffic load? So let them launch a popular initiative to see what kind of welcome the people will give him. Swiss citizens are very attached to their freedom of movement and they do not want to pit rail against road. It is for all these reasons that a yes is essential on November 24.

Moreno Volpi, TCS director

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