A test of patience for car journeys to the south
Published: Thursday, May 9th 2024, 13:40
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The journey south became a tough test of patience for motorists on Ascension Day. After midday, there were traffic jams of up to 16 kilometers in front of the Gotthard road tunnel on the A2. And a ten-kilometre traffic jam formed on the San Bernardino route, which was recommended as an alternative route.
Shortly after 7 a.m., the queue of cars between Erstfeld UR and Göschenen UR reached a length of ten kilometers before the Gotthard road tunnel, as the Touring Club of Switzerland (TCS) announced on the short message service X.
Over the course of the morning, the traffic jam grew to a length of up to 16 kilometers. This meant a waiting time of over two hours and 40 minutes for the journey through the 17-kilometer road tunnel into Ticino.
At lunchtime, the Renovate Switzerland climate movement staged a short blockade of the most important north-south axis near Wassen UR. Around ten activists partially stuck themselves to the road.
The police had to disperse the protesters and then carried them away from the highway. According to the cantonal police of Uri, the evacuation only took a short time and the existing traffic jam did not change.
At X, Renovate called on the federal government to ban new cars with fossil fuels from 2025 and to invest in soft mobility and public transport.
Alternative route also overloaded
However, the highway network also reached its limits in other places. For example, the San Bernardino route via the A13 through Graubünden was recommended as an alternative route alongside the Simplon route through Valais. In the canton of Graubünden, however, a ten-kilometer-long traffic jam also formed around midday between Chur-Süd and Bonaduz GR. The TCS estimated the time lost there at around one hour.
On other busy stretches of highway, such as the A1, traffic was also slow on some sections. There was also heavy traffic at the Vereina and Lötschberg car loading points, where waiting times of around two hours had to be expected in the early hours of Thursday afternoon.
On the Wednesday before the ascent, a 13-kilometre queue of metal sheets had already formed on the A2 freeway in front of the Gotthard bottleneck. Passengers also had to wait more than two hours to get through the tunnel into Ticino.
Full trains to Ticino
SBB's north-south services were also very popular. Some trains were fully booked on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning. And even for the return journey on Sunday, according to SBB, there were no more free seats in some cases. Because standing room is also limited, according to SBB, train managers may have to ask passengers to leave the train if there are too many passengers on board.
North-south traffic and the associated obstructions were also a topic at the Federal Council meeting on Wednesday. The government decided to take measures to prevent traffic diversions along the freeways in the Alpine region. However, tunnel charges or a so-called slot management system for tunnels are out of the question for the national government.
©Keystone/SDA
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