Zürcher Expressstrassen-Y

Zürcher Expressstrassen-Y
Basic data
Operator:	Federal Roads Office
Canton :	Zurich
Map of the highways near Zurich. The planned expressway Y is marked in red.

The Zürcher Expressstrassen-Y , usually called Zürcher Ypsilon or just Ypsilon , is an only partially realized motorway project that envisaged the merger of the A1 and A3 motorways in the Letten traffic triangle in Zurich . The project was the subject of heated political controversy in the 1970s.

history

The idea of ​​the Zürcher Expressstrassen-Y stems from two expert reports, the general transport plans from 1955. The structure should have accommodated long-distance and commuter traffic as well as inner-city traffic. The Hardturm and Aubrugg – Letten – Brunau section was included in the national road planning of 1960 . The Federal Council approved the project in 1962 and specified it in more detail in a supplementary resolution in 1969. The section soon met with vehement resistance, led by the Zurich working group for urban development .

Sihlhochstrasse in Brunau

On December 1, 1971, the popular initiative against Expressstrassen-Y was submitted in the canton of Zurich . It demanded that the canton of Zurich submit a professional initiative to the federal government with the request to delete the Zürcher Expressstrassen-Y from the planned national road network and to include the planned southeast bypass in the national road network. The initiative also demanded that the funds released should be used to accelerate the expansion of the bypass roads and to finance environmentally friendly tunnel solutions. The Federal Court rejected a constitutional complaint against the alleged unconstitutionality of the initiative on September 25 1,973th The initiative was rejected by the people in a vote in September 1974, with the majority of the city's population voting for the initiative.

On March 12, 1975, the popular initiative for a Zurich without expressways (neither Y nor I) was submitted, which was also rejected by the electorate in the spring of 1977. An extra-parliamentary commission set up in 1978 under Walter Biel recommended with a narrow majority in 1981 that the express road Y be removed from the national road network, although the federal councils did not comply with this recommendation.

In 1986, the not yet built section from the Hard Tower in the direction of the Letten traffic triangle was upgraded to a third-class express road (urban mixed traffic route with a feeder function). The expansion up to the Hardbrücke took place as part of the Tram Zurich West project .

Project description

The Zürcher Expressstrassen-Y includes the section of the A1 motorway from the Hardturm along the left bank of the Limmat to the Letten traffic triangle and from there through the Milchbuck tunnel to Aubrugg and the A3 from the Letten traffic triangle via the Sihlhochstrasse to Brunau, with a viaduct forming the platform hall of the Zurich main train station . The traffic triangle was planned for the bathing establishment Oberer Letten.

A later project variant provides for a second, lower-lying Milchbuck tunnel, which will be connected to the A1 from the Hardturm under the Limmat. From this motorway triangle, the A3 would pass below the main train station and the Sihl and link it with the Sihlhochstrasse in Sihlhölzli.

The merging of the express routes in Zurich is planned today as part of the city ​​tunnel project. The A1H traffic from the west is routed via the Pfingstweidstrasse, which has already been expanded as SN 1.4.1, to the Hardbrücke, from there along the Sihlquai, where it flows into the new city tunnel to be built near the Platzspitzpark. The city tunnel replaces, among other things, the Sihlhochstrasse to be demolished. It leads from the Brunau under the Sihl and under the main train station to the Platzspitz (triangular link with the A1H from the west) and from there under the Zürichberg to the Neugut, where the Wallisellen connection to the A1 is located. The connection of the Milchbuck tunnel or a new underground Milchbuck tunnel, which is not planned to be implemented before 2030, are no longer part of this project.

implementation

To date, only the section of the A1 through the Milchbuck tunnel to Letten has been implemented as the A1L motorway, the section from Brunau via the Sihlhochstrasse to Wiedikon as the A3W motorway and the expansion of the Pfingstweidstrasse as the express road SN 1.4.1 to the Hardbrücke. Until the opening of the Zurich north bypass , the two sections of the A1 were only connected via Rosengartenstrasse and Hardbrücke. From the mid-1960s, traffic to the A3 was routed from the Hardbrücke over the western bypass to Sihlhochstrasse, until the western bypass with the Uetliberg tunnel was opened in 2009 .

For the project, which calls for the A3 to be guided underground, the two tunnels under the main train station parallel to the Sihl were built during the construction of the Museumsstrasse station. They served as access to the construction site during the construction of the Löwenstrasse station .

In a statement to the Federal Roads Office FEDRO , the Zurich Government Council demanded in June 2017 that the Zurich Expressstrasse-Y should be removed from the national road network.

Accidents

Show the Sihlhochstrasse with the stub of the bridge over the Sihl
as a spherical panorama

The Sihlhochstrasse bridge was not completed. At the point where the continuation of the Zürcher Expressstrassen-Y was planned, a boundary wall was built on the carriageway slab, and traffic will be routed via the Zurich Wiedikon exit of the planned expressway. Serious accidents sometimes occur because drivers do not recognize the road layout or the traffic jam at the end of the motorway:

• On March 2, 1991 a young driver lost control of his VW Golf shortly before the exit and fell from the motorway bridge into the Sihl. All three inmates died.
• In September 2011, a driver driving at a reduced speed missed the exit. The car collided with the boundary wall and caught fire. The passenger was seriously injured.
• On February 29, 2016, a Romanian driver of a trailer set overlooked the traffic jam at the end of the motorway, collided with several cars, broke through the boundary wall at the end of the bridge and crashed into the Sihl with his truck. Seven people were injured.
• In the early morning of 16 December 2018 came from Genoa to Dusseldorf traffic forming Flixbus towards the end of the icy snow-covered highway into a skid and crashed into the perimeter wall. A woman who was not wearing a seat belt was thrown from the bus and fell into the Sihl, where she succumbed to her injuries. 44 people were injured, three of them seriously, including the two chauffeurs.

After the bus accident in December 2018, there was a discussion about the correct signaling of the road layout. Because time of the accident the road was covered with snow, it was suspected that the driver of the Flixbus the road marking had not recognized the exit. The Federal Roads Office (FEDRO) saw no need for action at the beginning because the signaling would "correspond to the standards" and the area was not a focus of accidents. Later, as an immediate measure, concrete elements were set up again to prevent vehicles from reaching the boundary wall. Such a barrier already existed after the accident in 2016 until the boundary wall was restored, but was then removed.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} West Bypass Zurich - The preliminary correction of a bad planning. Neue Zürcher Zeitung , April 20, 2009, accessed on March 23, 2013 . 
2. ↑ BGE  99 IA 724
3. ↑ Stefan Hotz: National road planning: The Y is dead, long live the city tunnel In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung of June 22, 2017
4. ↑ End of the Sihlhochstrasse. In: Google Maps. Retrieved December 18, 2018 . 
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Four serious accidents in almost the same place. In: 20 minutes. Retrieved December 19, 2018 . 
6. ^ Lena Schenkel: Car accident in Zurich: Dangerous motorway stub . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . December 17, 2018, ISSN  0376-6829 ( nzz.ch ).
7. ↑ David Sarasin: Crash on Sihlhochstrasse: Now the Kapo Zurich is reacting . In: Tages-Anzeiger . ISSN  1422-9994 ( tagesanzeiger.ch [accessed December 19, 2018]).
8. ↑ Adi Kälin: After a fatal car accident in Zurich: Astra initiates immediate measures | NZZ . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . December 18, 2018, ISSN  0376-6829 ( nzz.ch [accessed December 19, 2018]).
9. ↑ Flixbus crash: The most dangerous butt in Switzerland. December 17, 2018, accessed December 19, 2018 .