Harmful expansion or efficient highways? Switzerland’s motorway debate Switzerland wants to invest 5.3 billion francs in motorway expansion aimed at cutting traffic congestion. Opponents argue this will encourage even more traffic onto the roads. On 24 November, voters will decide whether to approve the contentious plan. The six-lane Grauholz section of the A1 motorway is to be widened to eight lanes. This expansion will encroach on the agricultural land that you can see in the background. Photo: Keystone The Grauholz section of the A1, Switzerland’s oldest stretch of motorway, was opened on 10 May 1962. Crowds braved the rain to greet the first motorists. No one had installed crash barriers. Archive photo: Keystone THEODORA PETER Switzerland has been criss-crossed by motorways from east to west and from north to south for the last 60 years. The A1 at Grauholz near Berne is one of the oldest sections of Swiss motorway. Around 16,000 vehicles a day used to pass over this stretch of tarmac in the 1970s. This has since increased to a whopping 100,000, meaning congestion at rush hours. The section was widened to six lanes in the 1990s. Now the federal government would like to extend it to eight lanes – in one of six road projects to be funded by a national credit of 5.3 billion Swiss francs. Other projects include motorway expansion near Lake Geneva, a new road tunnel under the Rhine in Basel, and additional tunnels near St. Gallen and Schaffhausen. A 40-strong alliance of environmental organisations and political parties has called the projects excessive. The group has managed to initiate a referendum opposing the parliament-approved funding, which is why the matter will now be put to voters on 24 November 2024. “The notion that you can prevent traffic congestion by building roads is a relic from the last century,” says the Green national councillor for the canton of St. Gallen, Franziska Ryser, who cochairs umverkehR, a group campaigning for a rethink on motorised travel. Instead of investing in “fossil-fuel mega projects”, public money would be better spent on shifting traffic from roads onto railways, she adds. A case of chicken or egg Opponents of the expansion view motorways as climate killers. Not only is road traffic responsible for around a third of carbon emissions, but the vast amounts of concrete and steel needed for big projects like these generate harmful greenhouse gases too, they say. Then you have noise pollution and the loss of valuable green space. The Bernese Farmers’ Union has also spoken out against the Grauholz expansion, which it says will destroy several hectares of agricultural land. The core message of the No campaign is that more and wider roads can only bring brief respite. By expanding motorway capacity, you are creating the wrong incentives and, therefore, causing more congestion in the long term. The question of whether more roads actually lead to more traffic is difficult to answer, say experts. For Carsten Hagedorn, who is a professor in traffic planning at the Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences, it is a classic case of the chicken or the egg. “What came first, the traffic or the roads?” Ultimately, we build roads where there is a demand for these roads, Hagedorn told Radio SRF. And new roads shorten the time we spend travelling. “Travel times are an important factor in deciding whether to take the car or a different mode of transport. Road expansion can therefore make the car option much more attractive.” Congestion is costly For supporters of the Yes campaign, the expansion is solely about relieving congestion. Traffic infrastructure 14 Politics
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