People often notice the road only when problems arise outside their own front door. Otherwise, they use it every day without paying the least attention - to get to work, to take the children to school, to do the shopping, to go about their leisure activities. It is taken so much for granted that users generally forget how useful it is. Yet, the road is one of the key elements in the economic and social life of our country. In the field of transport, Switzerland's current policy is to give priority to the provision of a high quality land transport infrastructure so as to enable people and goods to circulate as freely as possible. In this way, we hope to maintain or increase the attractiveness of our country for businesses and, thereby, our economic competitiveness. The imbalance between supply and demand in the road transport infrastructure exacerbates the conflicts of interest between road users, local residents and environmental protection groups. In the long term, the guiding principle of sustainable development should make it possible to resolve these conflicts in a more transparent and permanent way. Following the Rio earth summit in 1992, Switzerland took the principles of sustainable development into account in the revision of its Constitution. Thus, the country has elevated sustainable development to the level of a constitutional goal. The ministry responsible for transport has published its strategy, which gives due consideration to the three dimensions of sustainable development, namely ecological viability, economic efficiency and social justice While taking into account the principles of sustainable development, the plans for the joint development of the road and rail sectors will enable us to manage the growing demand for mobility on land in a more global and efficient manner. At the present time, the motorways around the main urban agglomerations and on certain stretches of the Swiss plateau, as well as the Alpine regions, are chronically congested and, in the long term, these bottlenecks could make the agglomerations less attractive from an economic point of view. This situation has led to increasing political pressure to improve the operation of the network. The proposed remedies include the use of telematics, extending the network, widening the motorways from four to six lanes, and developing public transport. Through its social, economic and environmental implications, road planning is a vital instrument of sustainable development, two essential aspects of which are road transport and quality of life. For the covering abstract see ITRD E135448.
Abstract