At the end of November, Geneva hosted the Club of European Intermodal Regions and Cities, a structure created by INTERMODES to allow European passenger transport players to share their achievements in terms of intermodality with their peers. The reunion in Geneva focused on the promotion of the railway link Cornavin-Eaux-Vives-Annemasse (CEVA) that would ease traffic in the region France – Vaud – Geneva (the last two located in Switzerland).
40 European communities’ representatives and commercial companies from the transport sector attended the reunion in Geneva.
Discussions were focused on the inauguration of the new rail link Cornavin-Eaux-Vives-Annemasse (CEVA) due in 2017 that would unlock the Franco-Valdo-Genevois basin, an area of nearly one million people showing a rapid growth until 2030, figures show. This infrastructure is the backbone of a regional express train that will be organized between the centres of Annemasse and Geneva within a 60 km radius. This regional cross-border project (230 km of lines and 40 train stations), mobilizes two Swiss cantons (Vaud and Geneva), one French region, Annemasse, two countries, three railway companies, three traction currents around a cross-border conurbation that the express train will help shape and develop.
The direct result of commissioning the Cornavin-Eaux-Vives-Annemasse rail link will be the three fold increase of public transport use which is expected to rise from 15,000 to 50,000 passengers daily. The project is part of “Mobility 2030” Master Plan used by the Swiss canton Geneva to revive metropolitan transport and intermodal links.
The Franco-Valdo-Genevois cross-border conurbation has the infrastructure allowing the build-up of structuring networks at the regional level. Together, the rail and motorway Swiss and French networks have considerable potential. However, independently developed and disconnected, it is now time to have them modernized and adapted in order to make them work in complementary across national borders. In this sense, the implementation of the agglomeration project is representative of a collective will to overcome the border effect, and the creation of ad hoc structures for the use of cross-border public transport lines has allowed the realization of this will on specific projects.
The cross-border nature is thus both a constraint and an opportunity. A constraint, since Geneva cannot consider responding to the challenges of mobility in 2030 remaining within the cantonal borders and an opportunity, because the territory of the cross-border conurbation has a potential in terms of infrastructure that is essential to highlight.
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