30 kph speed limit: the city withdraws its request to tender

The Tempo 30 project on the lower part of the Zugerbergstrasse has been stopped for the time being. This is said to be due to "political reasons". It is unclear whether the complaints or objections have been resolved, however, or how things will proceed from now.

The Zug city council (Stadtrat) has been trying for some time to introduce a speed limit of 30 km/h on several streets in the city centre. In August 2023, the council decreed this speed limit for areas in the vicinity of St. Oswald's Church, and this order is now legally binding.

Independently of this, the city council also wanted to reduce the traffic noise levels on the Zugerbergstrasse, from the Artherstrasse in the direction of Schönegg over a length of 170 metres, and thereby prepare it for a speed limit of 30 km/h. At the same time, the city also intended to renovate the “Library” bus stop so that it meets the needs of the Equal Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities Act (BehiG: Behindertengleichstellungsgesetz).

This is a requirement that the public sector in Switzerland should actually have met across the board by 31 December 2023 at the latest. But the Zug council are not the only laggards.

In road-based public transport (buses, trams), around a third of the 23,000 stops across Switzerland are expected to meet the BehiG requirements by the end of 2023. The Swiss Association of Cities (Städteverband: www.staedteverband.ch) wrote this in a statement on 10 November 2023. The obligation to have disabled-accessible stops is based on the Disability Equality Act, which has been in force since New Year's Day of 2004.

The Association of Cities also stated that there are many reasons for the backlog in the implementation. The conversion of certain bus stops can only be achieved in the form required by law at great expense.

The adjustments have now ended up on the back burner, because a number of local residents have also lodged legal objections with the government council (Regierungsrat) and the Zug Administrative Court (Verwaltungsgericht) against the 30 km/h speed limit on the Zugerbergstrasse, starting at Artherstrasse, as the Zuger Zeitung newspaper reported on 10 November 2023 (we reported on 14 November: ed.)

At that time, there was talk of six people taking legal action against the publicly published order.

The road from Casino Zug towards the Zugerberg should be changed to 30 km/h. But the city has stopped tendering for the necessary work for the time being                              Photo: Maria Schmid

Withdrawal for “political reasons” raises questions
The city then issued a public request for tender for the construction work necessary to implement the traffic measures on the simap Swiss tender platform on 26 October 2023.

The city council has now quietly pulled the plug on this project. According to an entry in the digital Zug Official Gazette (Amtsblatt) on 23 November 2023, the city council withdrew the request for tender. In its justification, the five-member committee writes: “For political reasons, the project will be withdrawn immediately and will not be carried out until further notice.”

It is unclear how the judicial dispute acquired this political tone. It can be assumed that, in such a short time, neither the government council nor the administrative court could have made a substantive decision on the objections raised.

The objections (sent to the City of Zug) against the project and the appeals (sent to the administrative court) fill almost two A4 pages. The appeals are said to have been received from six people.

They will now have to wait to see how this dispute will be resolved at some later point in time.