A2: 70 years of Lucerne – Horw

The opening of the A2 section of Lucerne-Horw was euphorically celebrated in 1955. The dark sides only appeared later.

« In Ennethorw, the column was received with firecrackers, the game of field music, a flag wing, the traditional costume group and a lot of official and unofficial audience. » The festivities that occurred in Ennethorw on June 11, 1955 were aptly carried out by the LNN (Lucerne’s latest news) in this quote. It was about nothing less than the opening of the first highway in Switzerland.

Luxury slide, wagons and bicycles

Back then, history was written between the Eichhof and Ennethorw brewery on a distance of 4.1 kilometers. With the new concept of the directional and cross -free street, Horw and Lucerne should be relieved of autotourism to the mountains. Instead of guardrails, a green median strip separated the cars from each other. A pedestrian strip as well as bicycles and horse -drawn space were just as possible on the highway as the new Renault Frégate. This new car of the upper middle class – praised by the fatherland newspaper with the words « Grazil elegance » – was able to fight up to 135 km/h over full load. A very dangerous mix of road users, as it would be shown, because there were only guidelines at the time, but no speed limit.

As important as the first railway

When the corks slammed on the small motorway on June 11, 1955, a new era was heralded. The car gradually replaced the railroad as the most important means of transport. The “fatherland” wrote: “This groundbreaking act means a turning point in Swiss road construction, and June 11, 1955, the opening of the first railway line Zurich – Baden can be described as an event of historical scope.»

Although there were no powers for road construction at the federal level, the entire national road network was already promoted in a planning commission from 1954. The Lucerne working group had firmly planned the section of Lucerne – Netmoos. In the 1950s it was also a concern of the canton of Lucerne to relieve the city of Lucerne and Horw from the excursion traffic. « Lucerne was one of the most important destinations in terms of autotourism, » said historian Hans-Ulrich Schiedt. The short motorway now is located on the main traffic artery of the A2 and thus on one of the most busy streets in Switzerland. It is part of a far -reaching road network that extends from Genoa to Amsterdam. From 1994 the highway was extensively renewed, and for example, the large connection circle in the throat in the throat.

The geographical location of Lucerne on the north-south transit route over the Gotthard has always been an advantage and gave the impetus for the development of the city in the 13th century. The old Confederation thus secured access to the Lombardy markets. However, the importance of the Gottharroute has been relativized in historical research in recent years, because the streams of goods were lower than was previously thought. For example, 20 times more goods were handled over the Brenner Pass in Austria.

Back to the first motorway in Switzerland: The initial euphoria soon followed first disillusionment. From the 1970s there was political resistance. At the opening of the Reussport tunnel in 1974, the dimensions and the benefits of the building were critically questioned. Little has changed to this day – the most recent example of the motorway skepticism at the national level is the no to the national road expansion last autumn.