Sovereign in favor of highway expansion according to survey
Published: Wednesday, Oct 9th 2024, 06:10
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According to an initial survey, the planned expansion of the highways met with approval from voters. There were no majorities for the other three proposals of November 24 on rents and healthcare funding. Opinions had not yet been formed there.
According to the representative survey published on Wednesday by "20 Minuten" and Tamedia, 56% of respondents would have approved the 4.9 billion Swiss francs for the expansion of national roads at the beginning of October. 42 percent rejected the proposal and 2 percent were undecided.
The main argument of the proponents was therefore: The expansion would reduce congestion and thus relieve towns and villages from traffic evasion. The opponents were mainly convinced by the fact that more roads meant more traffic. Congestion would only decrease in the short term with an expansion, as experience and traffic research have shown.
According to Leewas, the polling institute responsible for the study, the highway expansion is clearly supported by the FDP, SVP and centrists. The base of the Greens and the voters of the SP and GLP were against the proposal.
Parliament approved the planned expansion of the motorway network around a year ago. A total of six freeway sections are to be expanded over the next few years at a total cost of CHF 4.9 billion. The Federal Council had proposed five projects to Parliament. The councillors increased the credit in favor of a project on the A1 at Lake Geneva. An alliance led by the Swiss Transport Club (VCS) is fighting the bill with a referendum.
Opinion formation not yet far advanced
There were no majorities for the other three proposals that will be put to the ballot box on November 24. However, the formation of opinion on these proposals was not yet very advanced. All of them had a relatively high proportion of undecideds and "rather yes" and "rather no" responses, it was said. It is to be expected that approval ratings will change in the course of the voting campaigns, some of which have only just begun or not yet started.
The first rental proposal (subletting) received 47% of votes in favor (42% against, 11 undecided). The second rental transaction (own use) achieved 43% approval (50% no, 7 undecided). The double referendum against the amendments to tenancy law passed in the 2023 autumn session is about softening the protection against dismissal in the case of subletting and personal use.
Less approval for rental proposals in the city
There were similar patterns for both rental proposals in the survey: approval was higher in rural areas than in cities and conurbations, and it increased with rising income.
In the case of the bill on healthcare financing, 38% voted yes and 38% voted no. Almost a quarter of respondents were undecided, far more than for the rent proposals.
The proposal for the uniform financing of outpatient and inpatient services (Efas) stipulates that the cantons and health insurance funds should always share the costs of healthcare services equally: Up to 73.1 percent should be paid by the health insurance funds from premium money, and at least 26.9 percent by the cantons.
The survey was conducted on October 2 and 3 among 11,170 people from all over Switzerland. The margin of error was 1.7 percentage points.
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