Locals fear planned by-pass will mean increased traffic

The debate about a Cham-Hünenberg by-pass (UCH) has been going on for at least 11 years, ever since locals approved it in a referendum in 2007, albeit very narrowly. Once operational, it will mean no through-traffic through the centre of Cham will be allowed, the installation of surveillance cameras and the introduction of a 30-kph zone, though already 87 objections have been raised to this. Not that any of these measures are imminent, as only after completion of the Zug-Baar tangent road is work expected to start on the by-pass, i.e. in 2021/2022.
What is a concern for those in nearby residential areas, in Feldstrasse and Eichmattstrasse in particular, is an increase in the volume of traffic there.

Local resident Peter Zürcher outlined his concerns in a letter to the Zuger Zeitung, questioning the logic of moving the flow of traffic, with all this means with regard to emissions and noise, from a central area where hardly anyone lives to (what is still) a pleasant residential area with up to three times the number of inhabitants and in the vicinity of a school, too. If all goes to plan he reckons locals will have to put up with twice or even three times the amount of traffic they tolerate now.

Indeed, there is no doubt the Eichmatt area is one where much residential building is going on; one development with 100 flats has just been completed and another planned, the profiles already in place. What Zürcher wonders is how many residents of Eichmattstrasse actually realise that their road is planned to be used as an access road to the UCH.

For her part, Hünenberg councillor Renate Huwyler of the CVP party said that the use of Eichmattstrasse for this purpose was made clear even in its planning stages around the time of the Millennium, and had subsequently been built accordingly, i.e. extra wide, to be able to cope with an increase in traffic, adding, however, that lorries would not be able to use it, that there would be provision for a separate cycle and pedestrian path, and, what is more, a 30-kph limit imposed here, too. “All this meaning that there would be sufficient protection for slow-moving traffic, i.e. those on their way to and from school,” she said, adding, too, that, with the right-angled curve by Eichmatt school, it was not really possible to drive faster than 30 kph anyway, and that Eichmattstrasse was unlikely to be used by drivers on a Rotkreuz-Cham-Zug route.