Toll at the Gotthard receives a lot of encouragement

Transportation, Travel and Trips
21
I've no idea of the scale of local usage. It may be minimal.

22
great thing about per use congestion charging is that those who cause the congestion pay for it. so if local use is minimal, then so is the charge for local usage.

23

In principle, this is a valid concern. No sense for charging on a Wednesday on November. There’s no wait traffic due to traffic anyway. About highway traffic on small village roads…there’s already the police in there during high traffic days keeping drivers on the motorway.

On the other, hand, what kind of customer wants to see you on the Saturday afternoon of the Ascension weekend?

There’s a 2nd Gotthard tunnel in construction right now with a budget of a few billion CHF. So, it’s not about lack of investment infrastructure. The plan is that when the 2nd tunnel is finished by 2029, the 1st one will be closed for much need repairs and upgrading of old technology (ventilation, monitoring, rescue) and both tunnels will be working together by 2032. https://gotthardtunnel.ch/fr/

So, between today and 2032 something needs to be done.

24
Each of the two tunnels will only have one lane so traffic density will not be increased from what it is now.

It will be safer though and I assume they will make one two-way if there is a breakdown or blockage in the other tunnel.

25
I think there is some kind of EU regulation that makes this illegal. It may apply here

(yes, I know CH is not in EU but still may be bound by some rules)

26
Build a third tunnel?

27

Neither Germany nor Italy are doing their part by building capacity, nor is this going to change anytime soon.

Says SRF (via Deepl):

28
Out of interest, for a weekend in the summer holidays, at what time in the morning does the traffic start building up?

I'm going to assume it would be worse on a Saturday morning than a Sunday as the Friday night traffic may still be trying to get through.

29
Regressive taxes have nothing to do with whether a commodity is a human right or not

You make the point that many well off people have a second home in Ticino and we should also make sure that they have uninterrupted access to their casa in the summer. (which by the way is also accessible by train) I’d argue that a significant number of the swiss population is coming from Italy or the Balkans and would also like to spend their summer holidays to visit their homes or families. (generally speaking they are not high earners)

But they cause congestion 1 time during the peak season and not every weekend like those who have a summer residence.

30
I'm not advocating for 2nd home owners in Ticino for the simple reason I don't have a 2nd home there For the 3-4 times a year I drive across the tunnel, I'd find congestion pricing quite convenient.

I'm not a social justice warrior. I'm just pointing at who has the power to change regulations and procedures, and who has to follow such regulations and procedures.

31

https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/maut-am…h-173015988186

German only.

32
Just another instance of starting a conversation with questions because all the answers were already on the article

It's not a big issue because we already pay tolls in France and Italy. People would only pay when there's traffic congestion. No stau, no pay. So, no surprise even the SVP supports the initiative.

So, selected quotes from the article:

33

It's shit any time !!

34
Sounds like tunnel under Monte Bianco, that price never dissuaded anybody with workable car to drive through (and back), and most folks driving through it earn a small fraction of our salaries. Vacations are ridiculously expensive these days, any cost they come up with is a fraction of overall sum.

But its true its to another country, not many folks go to their vacation homes (or come home from weekly shift ie in Zurich).

35
For the quality of infrastructure, it's far too inexpensive to drive in Switzerland. How is the annual toll sticker not 500CHF?

The current cost (40CHF) is about 1 or 2 days worth of tolls in most major American cities.

And regarding the Gotthard Tunnel Toll, yes, it's a great idea.

For example, in New York City, the very short tunnels (only 2 kilometers in length) into Manhattan cost $34 USD round trip (30 CHF).

The Gotthard Road Tunnel is 15 kms. So I could tolerate a cost of around $240 USD round trip (or about 110 CHF one-way).

And this is before you consider that American infrastructure is (literally) collapsing, roads are in terrible condition, rampant corruption is abound.

36
Everybody who owns a car (and only those) should pay an additional penalty road tax. This would cover alot of costs. Add a penalty climate tax for good measure.

The only exceptions would be those earning a minimum wage.

37
You mean like the motorfahrzeugesteuer and all the taxes factored into the cost of petrol?

38
It's because of uneducated sh*t like this that I would consider moving to Dubai or China...

Those taxes are already imposed on cars (and fuel).

39
I don’t think there is as this exists in some EU countries already.

40
Years ago you could pretty much guarantee if you managed to get to the tunnel by about 6 am or preferably a bit before, you wouldn't have much of a queue during those peak times in summer. Now, it seems like it's busy the whole time and you just have to be lucky if you hit a random lull in the traffic.