Gotthard: National Councils demand all year round snow removal

The snow piles up, and there is an avalanche danger: from October and usually until mid -May, the Gotthard Passstrasse is closed. In order to open this north-south connection all year round, at least CHF 300 million would have to be invested in accordance with estimates by the Federal Office of Roads-for the construction of various protective galleries and tunnels. The Federal Council has this idea a year ago in one report Discarded. The justification in short form: is of little use, but costs a lot.

But now the parliament is putting pressure to make the passport accessible all year round. The Aargau SVP National Councilor Benjamin Giezendanner submitted a corresponding motion in the past session. No fewer than 57 national councilors, most of the SVP and FDP, have signed the advance. The Ticino SP National Councilor Bruno Storni also supports the concern-especially so that you can use the pass faster in spring. At Easter, the traffic jam problem is really big, he told the « Sonntagszeitung ».

More and more hours of storage

Giezendanner considers the investment costs to be relatively low. He can also create an important redundancy to the Gotthard street tunnel and relieve other Alpine crossings, he argues. As a reminder: In September 2023, the street tunnel had to be closed for about a week due to a tear on the false ceiling. The Ticino was severely cut off from German -speaking Switzerland. The lock fell in the time when no trains could drive through the Gotthard base tunnel. A fleeting freight train had massively damaged the tunnel.

The hours at the Gotthard have increased permanently in recent years. Patience is no longer in demand on Easter and other holidays, rather the cars are in line on most weekends from mid -March to mid -October. The leisure and holiday traffic is primarily responsible for this.

While Giezendanner’s initiative is approved by many Ticino politicians, Urner People’s representatives are skeptical. « I cannot imagine that the Gotthard Passstrasse can relieve our cantonal roads with a year-round passability, » said Mitte-Nationalrat Simon Stadler of the « Sonntagszeitung ».

« This idea would be bad for the canton of Uri, » says FDP Councilor Josef Dittli. As long as the passport is closed, there is no problem. The reason: the motorway entrances in the villages are blocked at traffic jams, so that it makes no sense for through traffic to switch to the cantonal road. However, this problem is available in summer as long as the passport is open. « If the passport were now open over the winter, the risk of clogged cantonal roads would exist all year round, especially on Easter, » says Dittli. He also fears that the canton of Uri would be plagued by a traffic chaos on winter weekends-because in addition to the winter athletes, the Gotthard crossers would also drive through the Schöllenen to Andermatt.