•User Rating•: / 0
•Poor••Best• 

The Plaindealer

Geneva has some big projects for improving public transportation in the city. This includes the long-planned (dating back to 1888) rail link between Annemasse and Cornavin station. And more trams. Even the possibility of better rail connections to Annecy and Thonon in France. But the city lacks any real sense of regional vision or what is needed to really crack down on growing traffic and pollution. The Tribune de Geneve is organizing a public meeting to explore new ideas. Everyone is welcome. (Wednesday, 21 November, 2007 at 20.15 hrs UniDufour)

People are finally getting openly concerned by the steadily increasing paralysis of Geneva by traffic jams. Not only are they worried about their ability to get from one location to another, but also the stifling pollution and deepening carbon imprint that more cars are creating. Some 350,000 vehicles cross into Geneva and back every day (2005) from neighbouring France and Vaud, an increase of 11.6% since 2000.

As one of the richest cities in the world, Geneva has also failed to push the Kyoto accords. There has been no recorded improvement in the quality of air over the past seven years. Only last October 10, the outskirts of Geneva between the airport and Nyons throbbed for three hours with a completely blocked autoroute and numerous sideroads, including dirt trails through the forests, lined with vehicles.

The irony is that Geneva seems to be hosting one international climate change workshop after another (see www.media21geneva.org), all seeking to find global solutions. Yet Geneva itself is showing remarkably little vision about the future, particularly when compared with other cities such as Basle in northern Switzerland or Freiburg in southern Germany. In both places, anyone taking a car into the city is considered mad given that the trams and buses are so easy to take and are often, reliable and fast. Bike paths, too, are a given and actually designed by people who ride bikes.

One really wonders why Geneva’s urban planners have not bothered to visit these two cities in order to obtain ideas on different and more effective ways of easing the problem, including public transport, bike lanes, P+D, and some very basic incentives for encouraging commuters to leave their cars at home.

Instead, Geneva has been pushing to reduce traffic by making it more difficult to drive and by giving trams and buses – and to a lesser extent, bikes - precedence. The ticket system is still not very clear for residents and foreigners alike, and there are no special efforts to encourage people to use their bikes with Ride (bike) and Ride (bus/tram) by providing free access on public transport, including accessible bike racks. The main problem is that public transport in Geneva is still not very good, particularly if you live in the suburbs, Vaud or the frontier zones. There appears to be no real regional vision of what is needed.

The planners do not seem to realize that people will only take buses, trams or regional train lines if they run often enough, and not just during the peak hours.

In the Pays de Gex, with 103,000 people and 71,300 vehicles crossing back and forth between Switzerland every day (2005 figures), only 4% are taking public transort. The famous F bus, which operates between Cornavin, Ferney and Gex, runs so infrequently that most potential commuters do not bother. Fed up with being stuck in traffic jams, many people have indicated that they would be willing to try the bus, but only if it ran on a more regular basis. Or, as some remind one, if a tram line were opened up again as was the case during the 1950s.