Six motorways are currently crossing Zurich, but soon the Swiss canton will ‘lose’ one of them.
When originally built in the 1970s, the A50 motorway was intended to serve primarily heavy-goods vehicle traffic linking Basel to eastern Switzerland via Zurich.
But in the decades since its construction, the A50 has not lived up to its expectations.
Apart from a few gravel trucks and motorists living nearby, the approximately four-kilometre-long stretch of the road located in the north of the canton is hardly used.
Fewer than 14,000 vehicles per day drive along the four-lane highway, while some single-lane cantonal roads in Zurich handle almost twice as much traffic.
Now, in a first-ever such measure in Switzerland, Zurich is going to dismantle the A50 motorway and downgrade it to a simple cantonal road.
This unprecedented move follows a recent vote by the cantonal Parliament, which decided that low traffic volume on the A50 no longer justifies its motorway status.
That’s because in Switzerland, a road must meet a specific criteria to be deemed a ‘motorway’ (Autobahn / autoroute / autostrada) – including a high-volume of vehicles.
What is going to happen next?
Only positive developments lie ahead.
The four lanes will be whittled down to two and the speed limit will be reduced from 120 to 80 km/h.
What is good about that?
The dismantling will free up approximately 12 hectares of land, which will benefit both agriculture and the environment.
The ‘freed’ space will be used partly as crop rotation areas and partly as habitat for animals and plants – areas which are becoming scarcer in Zurich and Switzerland in general.
And there is another ‘plus’ as well: Motorists will not need a motorway vignette to use this road.
