Sorry I couldn’t find an article on this in English, but to summarise: there was a bad crash on this rather dangerous road, and the response from the federal roads office, along with lowing the speed limit slightly and adding barriers, is to ban bikes from riding here.
For some context, this road is on the edge of a lake, with mountains on the other side. There is no reasonable alternative for cyclists. Whereas for drivers using this as a through-route (it is part of a major north-south access), there is a large tunnelled motorway on the other side of the lake that would be a minor detour for most. This is all while another road is being constructed to parallel this one at the cost of CHF 1.2 Billion, to be completed in 2033.
They are nice enough to offer an hourly shuttle for up to 16 cyclists at a time.
I think it’s absurd that cyclists again get the short end of the stick when one driver is unable to control their vehicle (with no cyclists involved). And the speed limit is kept as high as 60km/h when clearly the road should be for local use only where a much lower limit would make sense, and longer distance traffic rerouted to the other side of the lake (which is an extra 10km if you’re heading further south from Zurich for example).
ah, i guess that makes a little sense, although it sounds more like the road itself is the problem
And the speed limit is still higher than it should be.
60kmh is a really slow speed limit. It is especially slow for a highway that would be safe at double the speed other than a few corners.
It’s not a highway and it shouldn’t be treated like one. There’s a highway on the other side of the lake for those just passing through. This should be treated as a local road for access to places along it or at either end, for which a much lower speed limit would be fine and would make it much safer.
This road is definitely a problem, it is the only stretch of the main north/south highway that isn’t actually a highway, once they build that tunnel it can finally serve the purpose of a local alternative for vehicles that can’t go on the highway (bikes and tractors and other slow stuff).
The only way you could improve the current situation is by offering free bike-tickets on the trains running between the two closest stations instead of this weird shuttle.
There already is a highway on the other side of the lake. It’s only 10km extra if you’re doing Zurich -> Lugano for example. There’s no need for another road tunnel.