Preparatory work for major new relief road to start next week

After much debate and planning, preparatory work for the Zug-Baar relief road will begin next week and continue for one year. The project is being referred to as the biggest road project in the canton’s recent history and is expected to cost CHF 201 million.
 
The new road will be three kilometres long and will significantly reduce through-traffic in both Zug and Baar. Furthermore, the higher-lying communities in the canton, namely Menzingen and those in the Aegeri Valley, will benefit considerably through direct access to the motorway network.
 
The project has been a long time in planning, with the municipalities of Baar and the city of Zug announcing their intention to build this new cantonal road 17 years ago in 1999. Locals in Baar initially rejected the idea in a referendum and more than 50 others raised objections. Now all this is history and as Urs Hürlimann, the director of planning in the canton, said, “The project is a win-win situation for the whole canton.”
 
According to an announcement from the Cantonal Department of Planning issued shortly after the project was given the go-ahead in a later referendum in 2009, the road network in the canton at that time remained for the most part very much as it was in the Seventies, even though the number of cars had gone up five-fold.
 
As mentioned, preparatory work on the project will be starting on Monday, with the current pedestrian underpass in Inwil being replaced by a bridge and actual construction on the dual-carriageway starting in summer of 2017. Once complete in summer of 2021, the new road will run from the Margel area of Aegeristrasse to Zugerstrasse in the valley floor. From there it will follow the course of the current Südstrasse, which is to be widened to three lanes as far as the motorway access road in Baar. A 370-metre section in the Geissbüel area means the canton is to get its first tunnel, too. The precise route and feeder roads can be seen in red in the aerial photograph.
 
Hürlimann, who took part in a virtual ground-breaking ceremony with cantonal engineer Urs Lehmann and other dignitaries yesterday, said that the new road would take much pressure off existing roads over a wide area while linking-up places currently not so easily connected. It will form very much part of the canton’s investment for the future, bearing in mind the population is expected to rise to 148,000 by 2040, with 120,000 jobs here by that time, too.
 
The total CHF 201 million cost includes all ancillary work such as cycle paths, footpaths and noise protection and is coming from a special cantonal road construction fund, sourced also from motor vehicle tax and petrol duty.