Voters in canton Uri have opted against the construction of a second road tunnel under the Gotthard in preparation for expansion work to be carried out in the 2020s.
This content was published on
1 minute
swissinfo.ch and agencies
The initiative was put forward by the youth branch of the rightwing Swiss People’s Party. Voters also rejected a similar counter initiative proposed by the cantonal government.
The result has been seen as a victory for the non-governmental Alpine Initiative group which aims to protect the alpine environment from increasing road traffic.
The motorway under the Gotthard massif, often the scene of long bottlenecks, is one of the few major roads linking northern Europe to Italy, and is therefore popular with holidaymakers heading south in summer.
Meanwhile progress continues on the world’s longest rail tunnel, the Gotthard base tunnel. After achieving breakthrough on the two single track tunnels, the next task is to line each of the 57-kilometre tunnels and install the infrastructure.
AlpTransit Gotthard, the company building the tunnel, is due to hand it over to Swiss Federal Railways at the end of May 2016. It is scheduled to open to traffic in 2017.
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.
Read more
More
Alpine traffic faces uphill challenge
This content was published on
swissinfo.ch spoke to an environmental organisation calling for a cap-and-trade Alpine Crossing Exchange, a road hauliers’ association which says this would cause “massive economic damage” and the transport ministry, which is stuck in the middle. On Thursday the transport ministry reported that in 2010 the number of trucks using Alpine roads had risen by 77,000…
This content was published on
The rail tunnel that goes through the Gotthard massif in southern Switzerland is now the world’s longest at 57 kilometres. The massive tunnel boring machine 800 metres deep in the east tunnel started up at 2pm. Approaching from Faido with a great rumble, “Sissi”, as the TBM is known, smashed through into the Sedrun side…
This content was published on
That was the key finding of a study into the likely impact of the 57-kilometre-long Gotthard Base Tunnel, carried out for the organisation Alpine Initiative. The tunnel, which will be the longest in the world when it opens in 2017, will only increase rail’s share of freight haulage from its current 62 per cent to…
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.