Gotthard traffic queue hits 11km at start of holiday season

The start of the holiday season typically means long traffic queues at the north-south Gotthard tunnel in Switzerland. Keystone-SDA

The start of the summer holidays saw long traffic jams in front of the Gotthard tunnel on Saturday. Queues of traffic between Erstfeld and Göschenen in canton Uri were up to 11 kilometres long early in the morning.

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The wait on the A2 motorway before the Gotthard north portal was almost two hours, the TCS said on its website. On Saturday afternoon, the traffic jam between Amsteg and Göschenen was still six kilometres long, with a waiting time of around one hour.

Northbound, between Quinto and the Airolo rest area in canton Ticino, it was also blocked due to heavy traffic, with an estimated wait of 20 minutes on Saturday afternoon. Further south, travellers also had to wait around twenty minutes at the Italian border crossing at Chiasso-Brogeda.

On Saturday afternoon, traffic jams formed on the Gotthard between Buochs, canton Nidwalden and the Seelisberg tunnel on Lake Lucerne. According to the TCS, travellers lost around 25 minutes here due to heavy traffic and a closed lane.

Night-time traffic jams

The problems at the Gotthard began on Friday night. During the night, traffic initially built up over a distance of two to three kilometres, Viasuisse told the Keystone-ATS news agency. From 4am, the volume of traffic increased rapidly. In the early hours of the morning, vehicles were already blocked for ten kilometres, according to the TCS.

As an alternative route, the traffic service recommended taking the A13 motorway through the San Bernardino tunnel – a diversion for travellers coming from canton Zurich, for example, where the school holidays began this weekend. In many other cantons, the school holidays began a week ago, or even at the end of June.

Translated from German by DeepL/sb

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