The Confederation is tightening its belt and regional passenger transport should also pay the price. According to the consultation on the commitment credit for the period 2026-2028, public transport companies may not obtain the expected envelope.
We would then have to find a new balance for regional public transport. On the occasion of its 20th conference this Friday at Club 44 in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Ouestrail, the association which promotes the development of rail in western Switzerland looked into this issue.
Invited to speak on this occasion, Isabelle Pasquier-Eichenberger, member of the ATE committee, the Transport and Environment Association, believes that the Confederation is making a bad calculation in reducing the windfall dedicated to public transport. “What we don’t invest in these infrastructures today, we will pay for because we will not achieve our climate objectives,” she argues.
Maintaining and developing quality public transport with fewer resources is a subtle job whose balance has been undermined by the excess of 14 billion francs announced Thursday by the Federal Office of Transport to implement the rail offer 2035.
For Ouestrail, it is the future of rail in French-speaking Switzerland that is threatened. The association requests a second expertise and the re-examination of norms and standards. “It is not normal that the estimates have doubled,” exclaims the president of the association and Neuchâtel national councilor, Damien Cottier.
Swiss
