The Ceneri Base Tunnel

6 September 2020

On Friday, 4 September, the tunnel (Ceneri Basis-Tunnel) was opened at Monte Ceneri in the canton of Tessin.

This tunnel completes the NEAT (Die NEue AlpenTransversale) project, the most extensive and most expensive infrastructure in the country.

On 13 December, at 6 AM, the first train will run from Lugano to the north.  The tunnel is 15.4 kilometres long and connects Camorino near Bellinzona with Lugano.

In 2007, the tunnel (34.6 km) through the Lötschberg was already put into operation. The Gotthard Base Tunnel was opened on June 1, 2016.

Switzerland has thus fulfilled its (European) treaty obligations and respected the result of the referendum in the 1990s. Pacta sunt servanda. The expenses come to around 23 billion CHF, paid by Switzerland.

The Gotthard Strassen-Tunnel (over 16 km long), inaugurated on 5 September 1980, also resulted in a significant reduction in travel time for road transport.

The completion of the NEAT project, situated in the geographical heart of Europe, means (once again) an enormous service to European freight and road transport.

The Italian-speaking canton of Ticino will also have better infrastructure between the cities of Bellinzona, Lugano, and Locarno, or the Città Ticino, a kind of Greater London or the Randstad in the Netherlands (The Hague, Utrecht, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam).

In the long term, the project will also connect parts of northern Italy (Genoa, Milan, Como, Mendrisio-Varese (Maplensa), Novara).