Has Alpine rail transport come far enough

The Alpine Initiative won surprise support from voters who wanted to shift freight transport through the Alps from road to rail.

 

Exactly 25 years ago Swiss voters approved the Alpine Initiative, which aimed to shift the transport of goods through the Alps from road to rail, in a landmark decision. Although the targets have yet to be met, the president of the initiative remains optimistic. 

 

The result on February 20, 1994 was a surprise. Just over half of voters (51.9%) and 19 of Switzerland’s 26 cantons came out in favour of the road-to-rail plan and against extending the road network. 

 

The decision marked a turning point in Switzerland’s transport policy. It had implications for a vote in 1998, when voters ratified a tax on heavy vehicles and a project for funding public transport, and then in 2004, when a parliamentary proposal aimed at doubling the capacity of the Gotthard road tunnel was defeated at the polls. 

 

But implementing the Alpine Initiative has turned out to be complicated, notably because it calls into question Switzerland’s relationship with the surrounding European Union. 

 

The compromise solution, written into the Federal Law on Transporting Goodsexternal link, is a maximum of 650,000 crossings by lorries a year through the Swiss Alps two years after the opening of the Gotthard rail tunnel. This opened in 2016, yet the number of crossings remains above 900,000. 

 

Number of lorries crossing the Alps

 

Jon Pult, president of the Alpine Initiative and a member of the leftwing Social Democratic Party, shared his perspective on the situation.

 

swissinfo.ch: Twenty-five years after the vote, the number of lorries remains much higher than what is allowed by law. What’s more, in 2016 voters backed a plan to build a second Gotthard road tunnel. How frustrated are you by these developments? 

 

Jon Pult: It depends on if you view the glass as half-empty or half-full. Sure, you can criticise the fact that we’ve yet to reach the set targets. But on the other hand, thanks to the Alpine Initiative, Switzerland’s transport policy has developed very differently from the international trend. Switzerland changed its transport policy model thanks to the Alpine Initiative. There used to be 1.5 million lorries crossing our Alpine passes, whereas today there are just over 900,000. But that doesn’t mean we’ll stop working hard to reach our goals. Read more

 

 

Source: SWISSINFO.CH

Back List Back