Switzerland decides to finance and to realize long a railway corridor from four meters the axis of Saint Gottardo



The Helvetic federal Council has decided to finance and to realize within a 2020 railway corridor from four meters along the axis of Saint Gottardo so that the semitowings with a lateral height of four meters can travel on track along the entire Basel axis - Saint Gottardo - Uproar/Luino - North Italy, means that currently can be transported for railroad on the director Nord-Sud through Switzerland only along the axis of the Lötschberg-Sempione that by now - have evidenced the Swiss government - is next to the saturation. The objective is also that to little put the corridor in service after the opening of the gallery of base of Ashes.

The federal Council therefore has adopted and transmitted today to the Parliament the relative message to the realization and the financing of a corridor from four meters on the drafts of access to AlpTransit (New transalpine railroad - NLFA) along the axis of Saint Gottardo, project whose total costs second pile the Swiss forecasts to 940 million franchi (753 million euros).

The law previewed from the message will among other things confer to the Helvetic Confederation the possibility to finance, with contributions unsecured or mortgages, work on the drafts of access to Alptransit in Italy, in order to allow with the semitowings to travel on track until the Italian terminals. In particular, the message previews to authorize the federal Council to conclude with Italy an agreement for the financing of the widenings of the shape of free space necessary along the Uproar-Milan draft and in the situated section in the territory Italian of the line of Luino, between Ranzo and Gallarate/Novara. To such scope the federal Council has proposed the appropriation of 230 million franchi Swiss.

The Swiss executive has emphasized that the provision will strengthen the transport arranged through the Alps and therefore politics of transfer from the road to the track. According to the forecasts - it has explained the federal Council - they will be able so to be transferred until 160.000 semitowings in more per year and Switzerland will in such a way supply an important contribution also to the modernization of the European railway corridors for the traffic goods and to the strengthening of the competitiveness of the railroad.

The transformation within 2020 of the axis of Saint Gottardo in corridor from four meters will imply the widening of twenty galleries. The more important element of the project is the Bözberg gallery, in Aargau, whose adaptation will have a cost of 350 million franchi Swiss. In the entirety Basel and the south of the Alps (besides the galleries are previewed about 170 participations between, are interested penthouses, contact lines, signs and sovrappassaggi).

The federal Council has proposed that the widenings are financed by the bottom for the infrastructure projects of public transport (deep ftp) and afterwards from the new bottom for the railway infrastructure (FinFer) and have specified that the resources available are sufficient to finance also the realization of the corridor, besides the projects already decided and to those previewed from the relative message to the financing and the widening of railway infrastructure (FAIF).