Alpine protection

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The Swiss Alpine Protection was written in 1994 with the adoption of the Alpine Initiative under Article 84 in the Swiss Federal Constitution and means in particular the limitation of truck transit traffic on roads that cross the Alps . In 2004, a majority in a referendum on the tunnel initiatives prevented the loosening of the protection of the Alps or the construction of a second, separate road tube at the Gotthard road tunnel . The protection of the Alps in the constitution extends to four target objects: people, animals, plants and their habitats in and near the European Alps.

Wording of the constitutional text

The title in the federal constitution is transalpine transit traffic and the three paragraphs of the constitution are worded as follows:

  1. The federal government protects the Alpine region from the negative effects of transit traffic. It limits the pollution caused by transit traffic to a level that is not harmful to people, animals and plants or their habitats.
  2. The transit of goods across the Alps from border to border takes place by rail. The Federal Council takes the necessary measures. Exceptions are only permitted if they are unavoidable. They have to be specified by a law.
  3. The transit route capacity in the Alpine region must not be increased. This restriction does not apply to by-pass roads that relieve towns and cities of through traffic.

Priority of the rail

The transit of goods across the Alps from border to border of Switzerland is referred to as rail traffic. To this end, Switzerland participated in international agreements to expand these transport capacities. With the double-track Gotthard Base Tunnel , an axis of the European New Railway-Alpine Transversal (NEAT) was partially completed and put into operation in 2016 after 17 years of construction .

The then existing transit road capacity in the Alpine region for the transit of goods must not be increased in the future, because the existing loads are already perceived as very high and lead to damage. There are several possible instruments for enforcing this important sub-goal, such as capacity restrictions on the roads and their bottlenecks (passes, tunnels, bridges), shifting transit to rail traffic, shifting with regard to international air and shipping traffic, and local production capacities as opposed to this to promote long-distance based productions.

history

Parallel to the Gotthard road tunnel , which went into operation in 1980, a rescue tunnel was built on the Gotthard massif , which was considered in the planning as an advance payment for a later expansion to four lanes. The full expansion was postponed for cost reasons; The second tube should only be completely broken out and equipped as a traffic tunnel when required. At the Alpine Conference in Salzburg (Austria) on November 7, 1991, the environment ministers of the Alpine countries, including Switzerland, signed the framework convention of the Convention for the Protection of the Alps , which has since been ratified . Due to the high number of trucks that used the Gotthard axis and its access roads, expansion of the tunnel was politically blocked and the relocation policy of the Federal Council was finally confirmed in February 1994 by the referendum on the Alpine Initiative. Accordingly, the Relocation Act was passed on January 1, 2001 at the federal level ; it was valid until the end of 2010.

In 2001, a popular initiative called the Avanti Initiative was submitted with the aim of expanding the second Gotthard tube. The request was justified with the regular traffic jams in front of the tunnel portals, with safety arguments and with the upcoming renovation of the existing Gotthard road tube. Parliament's counter-draft to the withdrawn Avanti initiative was rejected by the people in February 2004. In 2007 the first report on the condition of the Alps was published by the permanent secretariat of the AK: Transport and mobility in the Alps. It was also based on figures from Switzerland. Since then, further status reports have followed, for example on water management and Alpine tourism.

At the beginning of August 2008, the Federal Roads Office (FEDRO) announced that the tunnel would have to be renovated in the period from 2020 to 2025. To do this, it would either have to be closed for 900 days in a row or for 3.5 years for 280 days at a time, with the tunnel being available for main tourist traffic between the end of June and mid-September. Solutions would also be car loading and the rolling road , with the advantage that the Gotthard base tunnel of the railway is expected to open in 2016. The law on the relocation of goods traffic (GVVG) was passed by the federal council on December 19, 2008 and came into force on January 1, 2010.

Instead of partial closures, diversions or car loading, the Federal Council recommended on June 27, 2012 that a second tube of the Gotthard road tunnel should be built. This enables the first tube to be completely closed for the renovation, which will take several years, and is considered the best solution according to the variants presented. In addition, the expansion is justified with the increasing security. The construction time is specified in the plans as 2020 to 2027, the costs are 2.8 billion Swiss francs, one billion francs more than a pure renovation. On September 26, 2014, the Council of States and the National Council passed a law that allows the construction of a second tunnel tube. Against this, the referendum was called , which was rejected by the referendum on February 28, 2016.

Even with two tubes, only one lane can be used in each direction, because according to Article 84 of the Federal Constitution, road capacity in the Alpine region cannot be increased. Any loosening of this provision and thus a constitutional amendment would be  subject to another (mandatory) referendum .

See also

Movie

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Art. 84 Transalpine transit traffic in the Swiss Federal Constitution. Swiss Confederation, accessed on January 24, 2016 .
  2. ^ Permanent Secretariat of the Alpine Convention: Alpine Convention - Report on the State of the Alps. (PDF, 11 MB) 2007, accessed on January 24, 2016 .
  3. ↑ Federal Roads Office FEDRO: Rehabilitation of the Gotthard road tunnel: Federal Council presents basic report. December 17, 2010, accessed January 24, 2016 .
  4. ↑ Gotthard tunnel will be renovated in ten years. Tages-Anzeiger , August 7, 2008, accessed January 24, 2016 .
  5. ↑ Federal Council wants second tube for Gotthard road tunnel . SRF Swiss television. June 27, 2012. Archived from the original on April 11, 2013. Retrieved on June 27, 2012.
  6. ↑ Summary: Federal Law on Road Transit Traffic. Rehabilitation of the Gotthard road tunnel. The Federal Assembly - The Swiss Parliament, September 13, 2013, accessed on January 24, 2016 .
  7. Jump up : Referendum against the amendment of September 26, 2014 to the Federal Law on Road Transit Traffic in the Alpine Region (STVG) (renovation of the Gotthard road tunnel). (PDF, 102 kB) Swiss Federal Chancellery , February 17, 2015, accessed on January 24, 2016 .
  8. ^ Voting on the renovation of the Gotthard road tunnel. Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications , accessed on April 19, 2017 .