Tour du Pays de Vaud bike race starts Thursday on a road near you
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Vaud police warn that roads in the area will be blocked for brief periods starting Thursday 24 May to accommodate the Tour du Pays de Vaud cycling race. Motorists are being cautioned to take care and to be aware that roads around the race will be closed about 10 minutes before the cyclists pass.
Here are the areas and times affected, but note that times will change depending on the race:
Thursday 24 May
Prologue, Moudon, first departure at 19h00, end towards 20h30, parcours de 2’960 mètres en ville, sur route fermée.
Friday 25 May
1ère étape : Cully - Bex, de 15h30 à 18h30 environ, via Rivaz - Saint-Saphorin - Corseaux - Vevey (15h42) - La Tour-de-Peilz - Clarens - Montreux (15h51) - Territet - Veytaux - Villeneuve (15h58) - Rennaz - Roche - Aigle - Bex (16h24) - Canton du Valais - Lavey-les-Bains (17h57) - Lavey-Village - “La Pelouse” - Bex.
Saturday 26 May, morning
2ème étape : Ollon - Leysin, de 09h00 à 11h30 environ, via Aigle - Yvorne - Roche - Rennaz - Crebelley - Chessel (09h24) - Porte du Scex - Canton du Valais - Bex (10h11) - Les Fontaines - Antagnes - Ollon - Aigle - Le Sépey (10h58) - Cergnat - Leysin.
Saturday 26 May afternoon
Aigle - Aigle, course contre la montre, de 15h30 à 19h00 environ.
Le parcours sera interdit à la circulation de 14h00 à 19h30 environ.
Sunday 27 May
3ème étape : Froideville - Epalinges, de 09h00 à 12h30 environ, via Villars-Tiercelin - Peney-le-Jorat - Corcelles-le-Jorat - Mézières - Châtillens - Oron-la-Ville (09h32) – Canton de Fribourg - Chavannes-sur-Moudon - Chesalles-sur-Moudon - Curtilles - Marnand (10h14) - Granges - Canton de Fribourg - Combremont-le-Grand (10h48) - Prahins - Ogens - Bioley-Magnoux - La Tuilière - Oppens - Pailly (11h17) - Fey - Peyre-Possens - Villars-Tiercelin - Froideville - Montheron (11h47) - Chalet-à-Gobet - Vers-chez-les-Blanc - La Claie-aux-Moines (12h03) - Les Trois Chasseurs - Montblesson - Epalinges
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The death toll was unusually high for motorcyclsts in western Switzerland over the weekend: 1 person died in Geneva and 2 in Valais. A car accident Saturday at 17:40 took the lives of two men in Geneva.
The two men in the car crash were on the road from Peney to Bernex, in Aire-la-Ville, when their car crashed “violently” into a tree, say police. The 52-year-old passenger, a Portuguese man, died at the scene. Emergency workers gave the driver, a 75-year-old Geneva man, a long cardiac massage but were unable to save him.
Police are asking for anyone with information to contact them at +41 22 427 64 50.
Geneva, two fatal crashes in 12 hours
A 22-year-old Geneva man on a scooter died Sunday in Geneva, the canton’s sixth road death this year. The accident occurred on the viaduc de l’Ecu, say police, at 05:40 Sunday morning, when his scooter had a head-on crash with a car driven by a 62-year-old man from Togo. The circumstances of the accident are not yet clear and police are asking anyone with information to phone them at +41 22 427 64 50.
Valais, two motorcyclists killed in separate accidents
A 32-year-old Frenchman lost his life Sunday 13 May when the front of his motorcycle collided with a car that was stopped in a line of traffic, between Martigny and Fully. He was heading towards Fully at 15:40 when the accident occurred, about 200 metres short of the Branson bridge. Anyone with information is asked to phone police at the 117 emergency phone number.
Also in Valais, a 66-year-old man died Friday night on the A9 autoroute. He was pushing his motorcycle, which had broken down, through the Champsec tunnel in Sion, in the driving lane at 21:10, when a 32-year-old driver caught him with the front right edge of the car. The motorcyclist died at the scene of the accident.
Canton Vaud tells Bern: pump money into public transport
The slow boat to Lausanne: the canton would like to see low-energy but high-speed options developed
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Cleaner air, healthier citizens, faster transport – Canton Vaud’s infrastructure department head François Marthaler says we can have it all, by speeding up investments in public transport, and he is calling on Bern to do so.
Marthaler’s demand in a statement from the cantonal council Friday 11 May comes on the heels of the first federal microcensus for transport and mobility, issued last week. The federal figures, combined with other cantonal numbers, show that train use is on the rise and cars are gradually slipping from favour.
Switzerland until recently ran a census every 10 years, but the use of digital databases has made it practical to compile annual microcensuses that focus on a limited number of subjects which were previously part of the longer-term census.
Regular use of public transport up
More than 60,000 people took part in the mobility microcensus. It shows that cars used as a share of overall transport have fallen from 77 percent in 2000 to 75 percent in 2005 and 72 percent in 2010. The number of cars per inhabitant has also been sliding, from 530 per 1,000 during the 2001-2005 period to 512 per 1,000 last year.
Worth noting: population growth was 1.9 percent, or 13,500 people more, from 2010 to 2011.
Vaud residents are becoming more regular public transport users, with 46 percent of them having some form of special rate “abonnement” card, compared to 37 percent in 2005.
The canton argues that the CHF6 billion earmarked by the federal government as an optional budget item to speed up the expansion of regional train service is the minimum for what needs to be invested.
Improving car traffic will make public transport function better
The council makes the argument that the project to improve the ring road around Lausanne is crucial to help the shift to public transport: if traffic is drained from Lausanne more rapidly onto the autoroute, public transport in the city will function more effectively.
Another crucial part of the transport picture is bicycles and pedestrians and here, the council notes, Vaud lags behind the rest of Switzerland. The potential to develop bicycle and pedestrian paths is huge, says the council, which would like to see these developed more in the greater Lausanne area.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The Tour de Romandie bicycle race gets underway Tuesday 24 April, with racers facing nearly 700 km run over the course of the six-day race and 8,800 metres of altitude differences.
Tuesday’s prologue takes the riders along the Ouchy quai in Lausanne towards Morges. The first race is Wednesday, from Morges to La Chaux-de-Fonds and it ends in Crans-Montana Sunday 29 April.
Vaud police are alerting motorists that traffic facing the oncoming race will be stopped and drivers will have to be patient while the race passes, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Areas affected:
Wednesday 25 April
Morges - La Chaux-de-Fonds
Departure Morges, Quai du Mont-Blanc (12h35) – Echichens – Romanel-sur-Morges – Aclens – Gollion – Allens – Cossonay (12h54) – La Sarraz – Pompaples – Arnex-sur-Orbe – Orbe (13h14) – Mathod – Montagny – Les Tuileries – Grandson (13h35) – Onnens – Corcelles-Concise – Concise (13h46) – Canton de Neuchâtel
Friday 27 April
La Neuveville – Charmey
Departure Canton de Berne (13h30) – Canton de Fribourg (13h50) – Mur (14h03) – Guévaux – Vallamand – Vallamand-Dessous – Salavaux (14h09) – Canton de Fribourg – Missy (14h17) – Vallon – Ressudens – Grandcour (14h23) – Canton de Fribourg – Yvonand (14h48) – Arrissoules – Rovray – Chavannes-le-Chêne – Combremont-le-Petit – Cremin – Lucens (15h20) -Curtilles – Sarzens – Brenles (15h35) – Canton de Fribourg
Saturday 28 April
Bulle – Sion
Departure Canton de Fribourg (12h25) – La Tine (13h05) – Rossinière – Les Moulins – L’Etivaz – La Lécherette – Col des Mosses (13h42) – La Comballaz – Aigle (13h57) – Bex (14h10) – Canton du Valais
Swiss autoroute jam earlier in the week, on the A9
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – The Gotthard tunnel at noon Friday 6 March had stationary traffic for 9 km on the north side, as Good Friday traffic builds up, the federal road service’s Truckinfo site shows. Traffic is very slow heading south from Chur due congested conditions, but several other parts of the country, particularly autoroutes around urban centres, have very slow traffic doe to accidents and road works.
The site is updated every five minutes.
Check the Easter traffic alert from the Swiss highway department for peak times on main routes.
Photo: ©2012 SBB/CFF Swiss rail
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The CFF is putting on 13 extra trains and adding cars to a number of trains between Thursday 5 April and Monday 9 April to handle the long Easter weekend traffic.
The additions will create some 30,000 extra seats, with the CFF noting that it wants to encourage travelers to avoid clogging roads, but that they should be able to travel seat, in comfort.
Most of the extra seats are on trains to and from Valais, Graubuenden and Ticino, the country’s biggest tourist regions.
CFF web pages with details on Easter traffic and extra trains
Patrouille Suisse ready to swoop over the slopes in Crans-Montana between World Cup ski race runs
View from Crans-Montana area at dawn Friday, a weekend filled with promise for World Cup skiers (click on image to view larger)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A good time was had by all, but the repeat of 1987, when the Swiss dominated the World Cup ski competition in Crans-Montana, never quite happened 24-26 February.
The sun was mostly shining, the skies were filled with the roar and impressive aerobatics of the Patrouille Suissse planes, and Swiss skiers put in a good but not brilliant performance.
Didier Cuche, in his final run on a Swiss course before he retires at the end of the season, came in first in Friday’s Super-G, with five Swiss in the top 20, but as the crowd of 23,000 and the snow both warmed up, the Swiss performance slipped a bit.
A fleet of buses including scores of Swiss postal cars, and a one-way system for local roads, get the crowd of 23,000 ski fans moving smoothly
The second leg of the Super-G Saturday saw Cuche in third place and Beat Feuz, the new Swiss hope, in 10th, with Austrian Benjamin Raich winning the run.
The Giant on Sunday gave Cuche a 15th place but Didier Defago put in an excellent appearance and came in fifth. The event was won by Massimiliano Blardone of Italy in a surprise performance and Marcel Hirscher of Austria, who now leads the overall rankings, was second.
Didier Cuche is now fourth in overall ranking, and Beat Feuz third, with five events left in the season.
Crans-Montana event details, TSR, Fre and FIS live reviews
Zurich Airport and airline Swiss will be part of the team that looks at Zurich flight issues
Zurich Airport, close to southern German airspace
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Swiss-German negotiations over southern Germany’s airspace are ready to take off, Switzerland said Wednesday, 15 February, announcing its team. Peter Mueller, who heads the federal civil aviation office, will lead Swiss negotiations for a bilateral treaty with Germany that will lead, the Swiss expect, to an agreement by the summer of 2012.
Noise from planes using Zurich Airport, which is just a few kilometres from the German border, has been a difficult issue for a number of years.
The Swiss government says that in light of the negotiations it is asking the European Court of Justice to suspend until summer a complaint Switzerland filed against Germany for restricting the use of German air space,
Swiss Federal Councilor Doris Leuthard, who heads Detec, the federal department for energy, transport and communications, and her German counterpart, Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer, agreed on the main elements of the treaty when they met at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January. The negotiations will follow these lines to work out details, says Bern.
Canton Zurich, the city, the airport and Skyguide will be part of the negotiations group but a second team that will follow this closely and be involved where necessary will include neighbouring cantons and the airline Swiss.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Traffic jams are dying down in Geneva after three days of snarled traffic, but the Quai Général-Guisan will remain closed until at least Thursday. Work is continuing on the area around the burst pipes that gave way to the cold Sunday 5 February.
photo, Jared Bloch
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – International organization employees are being alerted that traffic could be a problem in the area around the United Nations Palais and the World Trade Organization Thursday to Saturday, when the WTO holds a Ministerial meeting at the CICG, the Geneva conference centre.
The area around the centre will be cordoned off and access to the Parking des Nations will be limited.
Staff at UN agencies are being asked to use public transport.
Officially, there are no advisories about possible disturbances, but agencies have been alerted that the police presence will be heavy and flyers are circulating and media are received messages about possible meetings 15 December by a group calling itself “Occupy OMC” at the intersection of Avenue de France and Rue de Varembé and at 20:00 at the Rue des Savoises. Another demonstration is being announced for 17 December in the same area.
MILAN, ITALY – Sunday 9 October was a car-free day in Milan, designed to get the pollution level, one of Europe’s highest, down to legally acceptable levels. Seventy firefighters and extra police officers ensured that from 08:00 to 18:00 virtually no cars were driven in the city. The city’s safety commissioner said they were also checking cars with stickers for the handicapped, which could be driven, to catch cheaters, according to Corriere della sera newspaper.
The fine is euros 155 for driving on a car-free Sunday.
The ban followed 10 days of restrictions on certain categories of vehicles that were labelled polluters. The system kicks in when the pollution level rises above 50 micrograms of particulates per m3 of air over 12 days
Source: WHO, September 2011
Detractors, including some environmental groups, say the day off does little to bring down levels. Corriere della sera cites one critic who notes that the level has dropped to within legal limits after only on six of the 15 car-free Sundays in recent years, and that the city should invest more in anti-pollution measures for its public transport system.
Milan’s citizens were encouraged to take advantage of free entry Sunday to the city’s swimming pools and discounted entries for several museums, using the additional buses and subway trains that were put on for the day.
The northern Italian city has one of the highest car ownership ratios in the world and ranks as one of Europe’s most polluted cities for both the extent to which pollution rises above the European Union PM10 (particulates) limit of 50 micrograms per m3, and the duration. An Ecopass system to reduce car traffic went into effect in 2008, at which point 98,000 cars reportedly entered the city every day. The number of cars affected by Sunday’s ban three years later was 120,000, according to city officials.
The most recent comparative figures, from the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva in late September, show Milan, Torino and Naples sharing the top spot, with 2008 annual PM10 figures of 44 or 45 on average. The WHO published its new clean air guidelines and database covering more than 1,000 cities in 91 countries, noting:
“PM10 particles, which are particles of 10 micrometers or less, which can penetrate into the lungs and may enter the bloodstream, can cause heart disease, lung cancer, asthma, and acute lower respiratory infections. The WHO air quality guidelines for PM10 is 20 micrograms per cubic metre (µg/m3) as an annual average, but the data released today shows that average PM10 in some cities has reached up to 300 µg/m3.”
Bern, Geneva and Zurich showed annual averages of 21 to 24, while Rome was 35 and Paris 38, according to WHO figures.
School is starting: watch out for little people crossing the road!
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Cantons Geneva and Vaud are back in school today, 29 August, and police are reminding motorists to slow down near schools.
School buses at Ecolint, the popular name for the campuses of the International School of Geneva, will start the year Thursday 1 September with a difference: the school has been working with EPFL in Lausanne to come up with the most efficient, environmentally-friendly system for its fleet of school buses in the two cantons.
“Our student population is increasing rapidly,” said Michel Chinal, responsible for the project shortly before his retirement in June. He noted that the rising number of parents picking up and dropping off their children is creating traffic problems in the village of Founex, just outside Geneva. The bus service offered by the school is too slow. The Founex campus, La Chataigneraie, will be adding nearly 300 students with its new primary school opening this week.
“Parents often say that they would like to sign their children up, but the bus ride is too long,” according to Chinal. The school transports nearly 300 students in an area bounded by Morges in Vaud, neighbouring France and Geneva.
The solution was to work with mathematicians in EPFL’s Discrete Optimization Group.
EPFL chemist Rainer Beck, whose child attends the school, offered to optimize the service and he asked his mathematical colleague Friedrich Eisenbrand to tackle the problem.
Eisenbrand notes that “coming up with a simple arithmetic algorithm is not difficult. But that’s not an efficient approach; due to the enormous number of possible itineraries, the calculations are painfully slow. We needed to develop an algorithm that quickly rejected most routes, so that the computation could be completed before the end of the Universe.”
Risenbrand and PhD student Adrian Bock came up with a solution for this complex problem. Using a few clever techniques, says EPFL, the calculations only take half a day to complete.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The Simplon pass is closed to cars between Gondo, in Switzerland and Iselle in Italy due to heavy smoke from a fire in the train tunnel. Traffic is being re-routed via the St Bernard and Gotthard passes.
A freight train that left Italy at 06:00 Thursday morning 9 June caught fire two to three kilometres after leaving Iselle, heading towards Switzerland. The fire quickly spread to nine other freight cars and by 16:40 Thursday afternoon the fire was still not under control. Special tunnel firefighting teams, some 30 men, were dispatched from Brig, Visp, Rarogne, Gampel and Loetschenthal.
The CFF rail company has sent three special fire extinction trains to help fight the blaze.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Traffic heading in the direction of Lausanne from Geneva came to a standstill Tuesday morning 7 June when a hefty 14-ton construction drilling machine on treads fell off the truck that was carrying it, and onto the highway. Both lanes of the autoroute were closed for two hours to allow an emergency crew to lift the machine out of the way and to repair the considerable damage done to the road itself.
The accident did not cause any injuries.
Vaud police say the tractor-trailer pulling the heavy load burst a tire shortly before the Morges exit, then began to sway back and forth, with the machine pulling loose from its moorings before tipping over into the other lane.
Traffic was backed up for nearly three autoroute stops during the morning and the lake road was packed with vehicles taking it as a detour.
vines ripening above Sierre, in late summer
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A note to GenevaLunch visitors: the four-day Ascension weekend taken by many Swiss businesses has begun. The cold rainy weather will give way to warmer temperatures and partly sunny skies starting Thursday 2 June. This is a popular holiday for travelling inside Switzerland, so traffic will be heavy frequently, not just during the peak travel times for European’s who are crossing the country as they take the long weekend.
Temperatures are expected to rise to 20-23C for the highs in western Switzerland, with lows of 8-9C.
A reminder for air travellers: Wednesday 1 June is the first day of the new Swiss rules on duty free: you can now purchase duty free goods on arrival as well as when leaving the country. You can order your goods online, in advance, and the shops are open from 06:00 to 23:00 seven days a week. Details on Genève Aéroport‘s duty free pages.
Canton Valais, Switzerland’s largest wine-producing region, is holding its open days 2-4 June. The canton is noted for its spectacular Alpine vineyards along the banks of the Rhone and the rich variety of its wine grapes. Details in French; GenevaLunch will provide suggestions and more information Thursday.
Kevin Loetscher reportedly hit by car while walking
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Police in canton Vaud say a motorcyclist was killed Friday evening on the Ollons Villars-Road, and in canton Valais, a young woman driver who was over the legal limit for alcohol, hit two pedestrians early Sunday. One of those she hit is reported by the Tribune de Geneve to be Swiss hockey player Kevin Loetscher, age 23. Loetscher, notes the Tribune, was one of the most valuable players on the Swiss team, which had just returned from the World Championship in Slovakia.
Valais police have not identified the victims of the accident that took place at 04:30 15 May near a roundabout that is next to the hospital in Sierre. A 21-year-old was slightly injured when he was caught by the edge of the car, but the 23-year-old victim was hit straight on and hospitalized in critical condition. The pair were walking along the edge of the road when they were hit by a 19-year-old woman, whose car came to a stop 20 metres later, say police.
She tested positive for drinking, with an alcohol blood level of 1.56. Switzerland’s legal limit is 0.5.
Vaud motorcyclist dies on Villars-Ollon road
A motorcyclist in his thirties lost his life Friday evening at 18:50 when he was thrown after being hit by a car near Glutières, on the road from Villars to Ollon. He was attempting to pass several cars when one of them swerved to the left. The violent impact led to his death shortly after, despite immediate efforts to save him, say police in canton Vaud.
The road was closed to traffic while police investigated the cause of the accident.
Airlines, tourist reservations in Europe also seeing strong growth
Swiss chalet spying: Brazilians, Indians, Chinese and Americans came in larger numbers in March
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Overnight stays in Swiss hotels, the standard measure of the tourism industry’s health, rose to 3.3 million, a 2.3 percent increase in March 2011 compared to March 2010. The latest figures were released by the Swiss statistical office Monday 9 May.
Foreign tourist stays increased slightly, by 1.1 percent, while Swiss tourist traffic was up 3.9 percent.
The strongest growth came from Asia, with Europe the only region not registering growth. India led the way for Asia, with 5,000 more overnight stays, followed by China with an increase of 4,900.
Brazil had the strongest overall increase, up 5,900 overnight stays, with the US having 4,300 more.
The largest drop was the UK: British tourists spent 30,000 fewer nights in Swiss hotels in March than they did a year earlier: the 16 percent fall was the largest of any one country.
Tourism in general is picking up
Geneva police chase repeat offender for an hour, into family gardens area on city outskirts
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A 53-year-old Italian living in Yverdon-les-Bains died Wednesday night as police were questioning him over traffic violations, with his death apparently linked to longterm health problems.
Two police officers noticed the man’s car at 21:30 Wednesday because he was driving without lights, the car had no bumpers or license plates. Despite their efforts to pull him over he continued to drive to his home, where they questioned him for 20 minutes and discovered that he did not have a valid drivers license, before he suddenly collapsed.
The two officers tried unsuccessfully for 30 minutes to resuscitate him, joined by an ambulance team and the man’s son, who later confirmed that the police had acted appropriately and had not been aggressive.
Geneva police find stolen car, spend an hour chasing suspected thief
Police in Geneva were led on a high-speed chase Wednesday afternoon by a man who first tried to escape on a motorcycle, then in a car and finally on foot before he was captured while trying to hide in an area of family gardens in
The incident began early in the afternoon when police spotted a black Peugeot with Valais license plates parked in the Montbrillant area. Police had been seeking the stolen car, which was involved in an accident 15 months ago. A man walked towards the car but as police officers approached him he got on a nearby motorcycle and sped off. Police gave up the chase to discourage him from continuing to drive in busy areas, including the Vernier tunnel where he sped between two lanes of traffic. He returned to the Peugeot and drove off in it, chased by police. Once again they lost him, but caught up with him when his car overturned in Aire-la-Ville, here he then tried to hide in the gardens.
The man has several previous traffic offenses.
Expect disruptions as the race moves through canton Vaud
Start to the Tour de Romandie (photo: Sam' place on flickr: flickr.com/photos/sam-s-place/
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Tour de Romandie, a five-day bike race, was off to a sunny start Wednesday 27 April, running from Martigny in Valais to Leysin in Vaud. Brutt Pavel, Russian, led the group at the end of the first day.
Police in cantons Vaud and Geneva are warning drivers to be patient if they find themselves near the race between now and Sunday 1 May. Roadblocks will be put in place temporarily and drivers will have to cool their heels while the racers run through the area.
The itinerary provided by Vaud police
2nd stage, Romont – Romont, Thursday 28 April 2011:
Canton de Fribourg – Sédeilles (13h31) – Rossens – Canton de Fribourg – Chesalles (14h20) – Oron-le-Châtel – Oron-la-Ville – Canton de Fribourg – Brenles (14h55) – Sarzens – Curtilles – Dompierre – Villars-Bramard – Villarzel – Rossens (15h25) – Canton de Fribourg
3rd stage, Thierrens – Neuchâtel, Friday 29 April 2011:
Thierrens (11h15) – St-Cierges – Peyres-Possens – Bottens – Cugy – Froideville (11h41) – Peney-le-Jorat – Corcelles-le-Jorat – Carrouge (11h58) – Vucherens - Marnand (12h30) – Avenches – Faoug (13h00) – Canton de Fribourg
Against the clock / Aubonne – Signal de Bougy, Saturday 30 April 2011:
Aubonne, Place de l’Ancienne Gare (roads completely closed starting at noon) – Lavigny – St-Livres – Bière – Saubraz – Gimel – Pizy – Signal de Bougy (open about 18h30)
5th stage, Champagne – Geneva, Sunday 1 May 2011:
Champagne (10h00) – Fontaines/Grandson – Fiez – Grandson – Les Tuileries – Peney – Baulmes (10h32) – Ballaigues – Vallorbe – Pompaples – La Sarraz – Cossonay-Ville – La Chaux – Cuarnens – Mont-la-Ville – Col du Mollendruz (12h05) – L’Abbaye – Les Bioux – L’Orient – Le Brassus – Col du Marchairuz (12h42) – St-Georges – Gimel – Mont/Rolle – Bursins – Vinzel – Dully – Gland – Nyon (13h22) – Crans/Céligny – Coppet – Canton Geneva.
Easter weekend: sunshine, warm temperatures iln most of Switzerland
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The weather forecast for Switzerland is for sunshine and more of it, with a few drops of rain in northeastern Switzerland on Sunday 24 April. Lows of 6-7C and highs of 23 in Geneva to 26 in most other areas. The southeast corner of the country, around Samedan, is the one chilly patch, with temperatures of -2 to 14C.
Easter Friday and Monday traffic on roads: expect delays, look for alternative routes
School holidays began in a dozen cantons Thursday afternoon, and traffic began to build up quickly on roads heading south. By Friday morning at 08:00 the logjam on the north side of the St Gotthard tunnel was already 4 km long, with a one-hour wait. Friday is expected to be a heavy travel day on all main roads in Switzerland, so expect slowdowns.
Road forecasts are available in French from TCS (Touring Club Suisse), which suggests that drivers heading south from French-speaking areas use alternatives to the St Gotthard, which is a main European north-south road, taking for example the Grand St Bernard route. The Swiss Highway Office’s web site for trucks is updated every minute or so, giving real-time information on traffic situations, one of the best sites for this. TSR, Swiss public television, also has good traffic situation maps.
Schools that have been on spring break for the past two weeks, including many in Geneva and Vaud, return Tuesday, and Monday is forecast to be a very heavy traffic day on roads.
Airports and roads to them are also expected to be busier than usual, so build in extra travel time.
The CFF rail company recommends reserving ahead for international trains.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Tribune de Geneve raised the alarm Monday 18 April and is repeating it today: expect snarled traffic in the centre of Geneva all this week and next, with roadworks between the train station and Plainpalais causing backups that are affecting all major arteries through the city.
Zurich, Kloten Airport
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Zurich’s Kloten Airport saw passenger traffic increase by 3.9 percent in March over the same period a year earlier. The airport had 1.88 million passengers in March. The strongest growth was in local passenger traffic, up 4.6 percent, while transit traffic grew by 1.5 percent.
Freight traffic was also up, by 3.6 percent.
Job of convincing Bern, which has the final word, could be tough, say cantonal authorities
Bridge preferred over tunnel, but both options kept
New autoroute proposal backed by canton Geneva for Lake Geneva crossing
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Geneva is ready to push for an extension of the autoroute across the lake by 2030, arguing that it would ease city traffic by 30 percent and the ring road around Geneva by 12 percent.
The canton presented its project at a press conference Monday morning 11 April, the result of a three-year lake crossing feasibility study that cost CHF3.5 million.
The new link would extend from the current autoroute stretch on the right bank at Vengeron, relatively close to the lake, across to La Pointe-à-La-Bise, a reserve that the road would not touch, near Bellerive/Collonge. It would be entirely on Swiss territory. Canton governments do not have the right to enter into discussions with other governments on roadworks, but the proposed route approved by Geneva’s cantonal council could connect with Swiss and French highway as well as autoroute systems.
Two options are provided, one for a tunnel and the other for a bridge, but in both cases a tunnel under Choulex on the left bank, to preserve the Seymaz plain, is included. The bridge is currently considered the better option, from a safety and cost perspective. It’s too early, howevr, to exclude the option of a tunnel under the lake, say authorities. Further studies are needed that take into consideration new technologies that could be used for a tunnel.
City centre traffic would be reduced by 30,000 a day from current level
New bridge or tunnel to cross Lake Geneva would go from Vengeron, near Bellevue, on the left side of this photo, across to Bellerive, near Collonge (city centre to the right; photo taken from Chambesy)
Some 150,000 vehicles currently use the main routes through the city and across the Mont Blanc bridge. Cantonal projections show this figure rising to 170,000 by 2030.
If the new plan is adopted, traffic would fall to 120,000 vehicles a day through the city centre to cross the lake.
For people living near the two new autoroute junctions or further out and therefore using them, the lake crossing would be reduced in time by 35 percent, according to the report issued Monday.
The new link would extend from the current autoroute stretch on the right bank at Vengeron, relatively close to the lake, across to La Pointe-à-La-Bise, a reserve that the road would not touch, near Bellerive/Collonge.
It would be entirely on Swiss territory. Canton governments do not have the right to enter into discussions with other governments on roadworks, but the proposed route approved by Geneva’s cantonal council could connect with Swiss and French highway as well as autoroute systems.
The cost of the project is estimated at CHF3.1 billion for a bridge and CHF3.7b for a tunnel, without including various options to make improvements to city spaces and public transport as a result.
Bern’s current plan: reduce Geneva congestion by adding lanes to ring road autoroute
The arguments for and against a Lake Geneva crossing have raged in the canton for several years, but the biggest hurdle now could be the Swiss federal government, which has owned and is responsible for all national highways since 2008. Bern currently is considering plans to enlarge the ring road around the city in several places, from two to three lanes, to allow it to handle 115,000 vehicles a day. It can currently take a maximum load of 80,000.
Feasibility study report, in French, with annexes (including environmental impact)
Geneva, Lausanne and Nyon, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A French man in his 30s died Friday morning when he lost control of his car on a bend on the St Cergues road, Vaud police say. He was travelling from La Cure to St Cergue when he missed a left bend at Cheseaux, about 10:15. The car hit a rocky bank and rolled over, landing on its roof.
The driver was unconscious when emergency services arrived and he died shortly afterwards.
The victim was a resident of France.
The St Cergue road was closed from 10:30 to 14:00 for the police investigation.
Geneva youth’s scooter was hit by truck
A 20-year-old on a scooter died Thursday evening after he was hit by a truck near 7, Route des Jeunes in Geneva. He died at the scene of the accident. He was heading towards Jonction, after the Etoile junction, when the truck, which was using the delivery quai at number 7, hit the scooter.
A regular airport scan spotted animals in a man’s suitcases, but the sheer size and variety of the smuggled wildlife were a daunting haul by any standards. The live creatures the Indonesian was caught with at Thailand’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport as he was boarding an Air Asia flight home came from the local Bangkok market, he admitted.
“A man who went on a wildlife shopping spree in Bangkok’s Chatuchak Market was detained by authorities at the Suvarnabhumi International Airport yesterday as he tried to smuggle his haul—that included live snakes, tortoises, squirrels, spiders, lizards and even a parrot—out of the country inside three suitcases,” says the international wildlife group Traffic.
But the complete list is startling and included: 88 Indian Star Tortoises, 33 Elongated Tortoises, seven Radiated Tortoises, six Mata Mata Turtles, four Southeast Asian Narrow-headed Softshell Turtle, three Aldabra Tortoises, one Pig-nosed Turtle “and even one Ploughshare Tortoise—the worlds’ rarest tortoise”, according to Traffic’s press release on the confiscation.
“Alongside these, he packed 34 Ball Pythons, two Boa Constrictors, several Milk Snakes, Corn Snakes and King Snakes as well as a Hog-nosed Snake.”
The full list, according to Traffic, which has a photo showing the man’s “modified” suitcase:
Ploughshare tortoise 1
Ceratophrys ornate (Argentine horned frog) 6
Radiated tortoise 7
Indian Star Tortoise 88
Common squirrel 22
Mata Mata Turtle 6
Bearded Dragon 19
Aldabra Tortoise 3
Theraphosidae (baboon spider) 18
Pig-nosed Turtle 1
Elongated Tortoise 33
African Grey Parrot 1
Ball Python 34
Boa Constrictor 2
Milk Snake 1
Corn Snake 2
King Snake 2
Lampropeltis zonata (kingsnake) 1
Lampropeltis calligasta (kingsnake) 1
Hog nosed snake 1
Spiny-tailed Lizard (Uromastyx ) 4
Sudan Plated Lizard 2
Chitra 4
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Possibly the least-observed traffic rule in Geneva has the police out in the city centre, stopping drivers who cut through the rue du Rhone to place Bel-air, despite signs saying it is a no-go zone. 20 Minutes reports that police will be stopping drivers for the first 10 days of February to point out that the useful shortcut is open only to buses, taxis and delivery drivers. They will then start to hand out fines, an officer told the newspaper.
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Inter-city trains to St Gallen with stops in major cities: passengers forced by fallen tree to change in Lausanne
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A tree that was the victim of high winds due to the cold bise blowing in the Lake Geneva region took down rail traffic when it fell.
The tree fell on CFF rail wires between Geneva and Chambésy, just outside the city, shortly after 09:30, bringing a halt to all traffic on one of Switzerland’s busiest stretches of rail, between Geneva and Lausanne.
Traffic was partially back in service an hour later, but by mid-afternoon repairs had not yet been completed, and disruptions continued.
Line closest to the station in Geneva, right, is reserved for Geneva-Coppet traffic, where the CFF wants to have 4, not just 2 trains an hour each way
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Mies and Chambésy could soon be home to two new crossing points for CFF regional trains, residents learned Wednesday evening.
The Tribune de Geneve reports that the Swiss rail company met with residents to explain about the works that need to be undertaken in the area to handle the rapidly growing traffic on the Geneva-Coppet rail line.
Trains currently run every 30 minutes but traffic has become so dense, particularly at each end of the work day, that trains are needed every 15 minutes.
The two trains currently meet at Creux-de-Genthod but an additional line and two extra crossing points are needed to increase the frequency.
The new line, lake side of the tracks, would later become part of the RER regional system, Suva, and the trains will continue on to Annemasse.
According to the Tribune, the CFF would like to see the works, which will take 2.5 years, completed by 2015, but negotiations that began with landowners in 2010 are not yet completed.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) -European airlines will continue to be the laggards in the airline industry in 2011, Giovanni Bisignani, Iata’s director general and CEO, told journalists at the International Air Transport Association’s annual press day. Profits worldwide for the industry are now expected to end 2010 up $15.1 billion, well above the $8.9 billion forecast in September, but Iata cautions that while the numbers look large, this represents just 1.1 percent of the industry’s revenue for the year.
Iata has also revised upwards its projections for 2011 to a net industry profit of $9.1b, up from the $5.3b forecast in September. Net margins remain weak at 2.7 percent for 2010 and falling to 1.5% percent in 2011, the organization, whose members are the world’s airlines, stated.
Industry remains fragile, “nowhere near covering cost of capital”
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The cold front from the northwest that is expected to abruptly end the Lake Geneva region’s three-day warm spell starting Thursday night has taken a foothold in France, notably in Paris. Buses, regional trains and many Metro lines have virtually stopped running, airports have offered spotty service, traffic is snarled and even the Eiffel Tower, famously open year-round, has closed under a cloak of invisibility.
TGV service between Paris and Switzerland is still running, but the Paris-Basel-Zurich evening train is 1 hour 20minutes late. For CCF rail traffic updates, the French version tends to have the latest details before the English version.
Links to other sites: AFP, Le Monde offers a TV telezapping view of the crippled French capital and region around it.
Télézapping : La neige engloutit la Tour Eiffel
envoyé par lemondefr. – L'info internationale vidéo.
