Ceneri Tunnel Opens, Neat Century Work Completed – Switzerland

The time has come. The official inauguration of the new Ceneri Base Tunnel will be held this Friday, in view of the corona virus and the necessary protection measures, however, on a modest scale. Only a few dozen of the 650 originally invited guests will be there. Federal President Simonetta Sommaruga, Federal Councilor Ignazio Cassis and others will officially hand over the tunnel to operator SBB. Commissioning will follow in December with the change to the 2021 calendar.

With the Ceneri Base Tunnel, the New Alpine Transversal (Neat) will be completed, a century construction that took 28 years to complete, the Ceneri 14 years only, and devoured around 22 billion francs. A flat railway through the Alps, “which, as a contribution to the protection of the Alps, must make an important contribution to shift freight traffic from road to rail”, as Transport Minister Sommaruga has tirelessly repeated.

Indeed, after the Lötschberg and Gotthard base tunnels and the widening to a corner height of 4 meters, the Ceneri is the last puzzle in the most important European freight corridor Rotterdam-Genoa at the moment. Despite the new super tunnels, freight trains will continue to rattle on the main route through central Bellinzona / Giubiasco and south of Lugano through densely populated areas. Expansion south to the Italian border near Chiasso is still in the stars, and there are major deficiencies in access routes abroad. The advantages are more concrete when it comes to passenger transport.

For rail customers, travel times between north and south are reduced by about 20 minutes:

• A drive from Zurich to Lugano will take you just under two hours.
• The train ride from Lucerne to Lugano will now take 1 hour 40 minutes.
• A EuroCity train between Zurich and the metropolis of Milan, in northern Italy, now takes 3 hours and 17 minutes.

That’s fast, but it’s still a long way from the promises made by the Federal Council in the 1992 referendum on Neat. In the voting booklet at the time it said: “NEAT gives us access to the European transport network of tomorrow. From Zurich, you can reach Milan in a good 2 hours, Paris and Frankfurt in 3 hours, London and Rome in just under 5 1/2 hours. “

Thanks to the tunnel, Ticino will get closer

However, the fact is that the Ceneri Base Tunnel, thanks to an additional detour to Locarno, will fulfill an important task for Ticino’s local rail transport. Travel time between Lugano and Locarno on the Tilo S-Bahn is cut in half to 30 minutes.

It will only be 15 minutes between Bellinzona and Lugano, but not until April 5, 2021, when the new schedule is fully implemented. Traffic expert Remigio Ratti says:

The first effects have already been noticed. The Bellinzonese in particular has become more attractive and has seen a real estate boom and population growth.

The northern and southern parts of Ticino will get closer together. And so, two parties that embody different mindsets that once came together forcibly under Napoleon in 1803: the more alpine mindset in the north; the most urban and Italian mentality in the south. The Lugano and Ambrì clubs embody these opposites in ice hockey. The Ceneri, 554 meters high, is the symbol of separation.

One of the great hopes is that the Ceneri base tunnel with the Tilo S-Bahn will be so attractive that the people of Ticino switch to the train and leave the car in the garage. The chaos of daily traffic sends its regards. It remains to be seen if there will be a big change. Because the car is part of the Latino mentality and public transportation has not become flesh and blood. “We are a bit behind the German-speaking part of Switzerland,” admits Martino Colombo, head of the cantonal mobility office. But he is still waiting for the public transport revolution and seeing positive signs, such as the increase in passengers on the S-Bahn in recent years.

However, not all Ticino residents live near a Tilo stop. The canton has launched a gigantic investment program to strengthen local transport, especially bus connections, in the interior of the country, 460 million francs over the next four years, but hardly any new Park & ​​Ride parking spaces. .

The dark side of a large building

The Ceneri base tunnel will definitely be the new backbone of public transport in Ticino. Like any large building, the Ceneri also has its downsides. Two miners were killed in accidents in 2010 and 2015. “It was the most difficult times from a human point of view,” admits Dieter Schwank, the client’s managing director, in the opening brochure. The fatal accident in 2010, in which a Calabrian miner was killed, had long legal consequences up to the federal court.

The superiors were acquitted of the charge of negligent homicide. The family has not accepted the verdict to this day. He declined the invitation to participate in the opening of the tunnel.

There are still complaints in the room about any irregularity in the installation of railway technology by the Italian construction companies. In 2019, unions announced a case of alleged wage dumping and excessively long shifts of tunnel workers. The prosecution opened an investigation. Unknown result. The investigating authority does not wish to provide information on the ongoing proceedings.