120,000 vehicles a day – ready Eye of a needle? Free travel through the new Gubrist Tunnel – News

  • Free travel on the Gubrist: All lanes in the new tunnel have been open since 11 a.m.
  • After 14 years of planning and more than six years of construction, the third tube has officially opened.
  • The federal government, canton, city and local communities celebrated the opening in the presence of Federal Councilor Albert Rösti.
  • The three-kilometer tube between Affoltern (ZH) and Weiningen (ZH) alone cost around 565 million francs.

Every day, around 120,000 vehicles drive over the Zurich northern bypass, via the Gubrist tunnel, the bottleneck on the route. The bypass is one of the busiest sections of road in Switzerland. Traffic is backed up on Zurich’s Nordring 350 days a year. The hope of relief rests on the third tunnel tube.

Facts and figures about the new Gubrist Tunnel


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Legend:

Traffic is now rolling through the third tube of the Gubrist Tunnel.

SRF

  • The third tube is three kilometers long.
  • It was built from 2016 to 2023.
  • All in all, the entire construction project (including the roofing and compensation measures) will cost around CHF 1.5 billion.
  • CHF 612 million will be used to maintain and renovate the existing tubes.
  • More than three dozen different companies were involved in the project.
  • It will take until 2027 for traffic to finally circulate on a total of seven lanes (three in the direction of Bern/Basel/Lucerne/Chur and four in the direction of St. Gallen/Zurich Airport).
  • Until then, the two older tunnel tubes will be renovated.

“With the opening of the third Gubrist tube, traffic in the direction of Bern and Lucerne will flow much better – that’s good for the nerves of drivers and for our economy,” said Carmen Walker Späh, government councilor and economics director of the canton of Zurich, in front of around 200 invited guests.

Switzerland would not function without national roads.

The national roads make up three percent of Swiss roads, but 40 percent of private traffic and 70 percent of freight traffic run here. “Switzerland would not function without national roads,” said Federal Councilor and Transport Minister Albert Rösti in his opening speech.

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Legend:

The third Gubrist tube (on the left in the picture), shortly before the opening in April 2023.

Keystone/Ennio Leanza

The opening of the third tube was a special event, Rösti continued. After many years, the traffic jam at the Gubrist should no longer be the norm, but an exception. The two old tunnel tubes will now be renovated by 2027. By then at the latest, the situation at the bottleneck Gubrist should be significantly better.

The Federal Council emphasized that such expansion work is also associated with compensatory measures for nature. It benefits the population, but also biodiversity.

Detour via the highest court

2020 was the breakthrough of the building. The lead time was huge. Years of planning and court cases have delayed construction. The municipality of Weiningen defended itself up to the federal court. She enforced a 100 meter canopy of the highway. The opening therefore came ten years later than planned.

Finally, the opening was delayed because components from China were not delivered during the corona pandemic.

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