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Founded in Geneva in 1996 under the auspices of the Council of Europe, FEDRE has always focused on cross-border regions. In 2023, it formed a partnership with Crédit Agricole next bank to study the border effect along Switzerland’s periphery in various fields, some of which go unnoticed by the general public. Following the first issue, which addressed food aid, the Founded in Geneva in 1996 under the auspices of the Council of Europe, FEDRE has always focused on cross-border regions. In 2023, it formed a partnership with Crédit Agricole next bank to study the border effect along Switzerland’s periphery in various fields, some of which escape the attention of the general public. Following Issue 1, which addressed food aid; Issue 2, which explored challenges in the healthcare sector; Issue 3, which presented a vital topic for our regions—water; Issue 4, focused on culture; Issue 5, addressing the sensitive issue of who compensates unemployed cross-border workers; Issue 6 focused on the idea of creating a cross-border resident card, Issue 7 addressed sustainable mobility in cross-border urban areas, this issue is devoted to the European aspects of cross-border cooperation, Issue 8 is dedicated to the European aspects of cross-border cooperation, Issue 9 to the diversity of direct taxation systems for cross-border workers, Issue 10 to the difference between Switzerland and its neighbors in counting the unemployed, and in this Issue 11, we address certain challenges in the development of rail transport in border metropolitan areas.
How can one imagine a metropolitan area worthy of the name without a transportation system that measures up? This is all the more essential in cross-border metropolitan areas, such as Basel and Geneva, where the daily flow of cross-border commuters adds to the commuter traffic characteristic of any national metropolitan area. With COP 29 set to take place in Baku in November 2024, it is important to emphasize, in the context of the fight against global warming, the importance of developing rail infrastructure. The stakes—particularly financial ones—are enormous, and the challenges to be overcome are far from simple.
Geneva and its rolling stock and infrastructure development projects
With an average of 70,000 passengers per day, the Léman Express, which opened in 2019, is considered a major success for the Greater Geneva area. However, it has become a victim of its own success and needs to adapt, as it is estimated that during peak hours, there are 50% more passengers than available seats. As a short-term measure, it has been decided to suspend RegioExpress trains — whose double-decker trains have more seats than the RER—at all CEVA stations between Geneva Cornavin and Annemasse. This will require purchasing more double-decker trains. But that won’t be enough; we need to look further ahead.
Another challenge that Geneva aims to tackle is the expansion of the metropolitan RER network through the construction of a new strategic north-south infrastructure to extend the reach of the Léman Express. This new line would serve the international organizations district, industrial zones, and several new neighborhoods. However, this proposed north-south axis for the Léman Express, which had been submitted for federal funding under the “Strategic Railway Infrastructure Development Program” (PRODES), was not selected in 2018, Geneva plans to reapply as part of the next PRODES Message, which will be submitted to the Federal Parliament in 2026.
Basel's Ambitious Projects
Unlike the Geneva North-South project, the development of the central section of the Basel tri-national S-Bahn has been included in the Swiss Confederation’s PRODES program, alongside improvements to the Aarau–Zurich, Lausanne–Bern, and Winterthur–St. Gallen routes, among others. It should be noted that for more than 20 years now, the authorities in both Basel cantons have been pursuing the vision of an underground station that would create capacity for a cross-borderS-Bahn.
This project, known as“Herzstück”—underground connections between the main station and the station serving Germany (Badischer Bahnhof)—is so massive in scale that Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) does not expect it to be completed before 2050 at the earliest. The local daily (Basler Zeitung) considers it “bordering on madness,” and the federal government is hesitant to commit to costs running into the billions for a single region of the country (it estimates them at 9 billion, far from the 2 to 3 billion initially projected), while some voices are speaking out in favor of emulating the pragmatic approach of Geneva’s Léman Express, which is being developed in its own right through successive phases.
Geneva-Basel: Different Approaches… or Converging Ones?
There may also be a “cultural” aspect to this… Have we noticed the tendency in German-speaking Switzerland to build underground train stations, in Bern and Zurich—something you don’t see in Geneva, Lausanne, Mulhouse, or Strasbourg…
But this difference in approach may be narrowing…
In fact, plans call for the construction of a two-track underground station at Genève-Cornavin, with its two access tunnels to be built beneath the current station to accommodate population growth and improve service in the Lake Geneva basin and the Geneva border region. According to the SBB, construction is expected to take nine years. The public review is currently scheduled for late 2027, with the project’s cost currently estimated at 1.9 billion francs. The infrastructure is expected to be operational in 2038 at the earliest.
As with Basel, support is being sought from the federal government as part of its 2026 message on rail infrastructure. And as with Basel, the federal government is very hesitant…
One of the major projects in the Basel region is the creation of a rail link toEuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse via a 6-kilometer rail line starting from the Saint-Louis station, where currently only a bus service (shuttles) is available; The cost, largely covered by Switzerland, would be around 450 million CHF, with service expected to begin around 2035. And in Geneva, where the congested airport is becoming a victim of its own success, could we not consider sharing certain routes with Lyon Saint-Exupéry Airport, which has enough space to expand? This would obviously require the launch of a high-speed rail line connecting the two airports in about 30 minutes—an idea that was already proposed in the 1980s and which would certainly be worth revisiting. Political decisions are truly inscrutable!