Motorways no longer make the Swiss dream as much

The vote on motorway widening seems tighter than ever. If the green wave is in decline, the Swiss do not seem very enthusiastic about a very expensive and polluting project.

Whatever the result on the evening of November 24, the campaign to widen the six sections of the motorway already has a big surprise in store: concrete no longer makes the Swiss dream so much. The skillful Albert Rösti, both Minister of the Environment and Minister of Roads, may well be leading an all-out campaign to highlight investment needs and defend expansion, particularly of the Le Vengeron-Coppet-Nyon axis, the Swiss hesitate. And according to the latest SSR polls, the no vote would pass, at 51%, next Sunday, with a hostile vote from women, which could be decisive.

The project is costly and above all incompatible with climate objectives, claims the broad alliance of environmental organizations, supported by the left, which is leading the no battle. While at COP29 in Baku negotiations are slipping on the funds to be released to fulfill the Paris agreements, in Switzerland, we are tearing ourselves apart on bits of the highway, but, undoubtedly, with the images of the recent disasters, in Sierre, Brienz or Valence.