Basel-EuroAirport rail link should open in 2028
The EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Fribourg Airport should be accessible by rail by 2028. Project leaders are convinced that trains will replace the buses currently connecting the city of Basel to the airport within ten years.
The French national railway company SNCF said on Thursday that is it is normal that financing for a project of this magnitude is not yet fully secured in France. The cost of building this connection is estimated at CHF270 million (CHF279 million).
The French government had caused some unrest on the Swiss side when it said a few months ago that this link was not a priority but local authorities in the Alsace region recently noted the project is progressing.
EuroAirport, the Grand Est Region, SNCF and Switzerland’s Federal Office of Transport (FOT) are behind this transportation project.
The plan is to link the airport to Basel station by building six new kilometres of track between EuroAirport and the Strasbourg-Mulhouse-Basel railway line.
Currently, the bus journey between Basel’s train station and the airport takes 18 minutes by bus. It will be reduced to 10 minutes with the train. The new route will benefit not only EuroAirport passengers (7.9 million in 2017), but also the 6,300 people who work at the airport.
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