New train station
Liquidity bottleneck at SBB – Sursee receives less money for major projects
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In Sursee, a new bus station including an underground bike station is to be built for 23.8 million francs. Financing could be a tough nut to crack.
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Sursee is to receive an “attractive entrance gate”. To this end, the city council would like to redesign the station square. This should not only be upgraded, but also safer and handicapped accessible. At the same time, public transport, pedestrian and bicycle traffic are to be promoted. A new bus station as well as an above-ground bicycle station with 400 additional parking spaces and an underground bicycle station with 1000 new spaces are planned (we reported).
This is what the new bus station should look like one day.
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The major project will cost 23.8 million francs. The bus station is estimated at around 12.5 million, the Velostation at 10.1 million. In addition, there are expenses for plant management. The city of Sursee was able to find various partners for the financing, such as the Canton of Lucerne, the Lucerne Transport Association, neighboring communities and the SBB.
Instead of 3 million, only CHF 700,000 from the SBB
At least that’s what the plans looked like. Because the SBB have now promised a much smaller contribution to co-financing the Velostation, as the city council announced at the municipal meeting on Monday. Instead of the planned 3 million francs, the federal railways will probably only contribute around 700,000 francs.
According to construction manager Romeo Venetz (CVP), the SBB justified this with liquidity bottlenecks. “We were told that we had to concentrate on the most urgent infrastructure projects,” says Venetz. “For us the situation is extremely unsatisfactory.”
For Sursee this means two things. On the one hand, the city now has to pay an additional 2.3 million francs. On the other hand, Venetz fears disadvantages in negotiations with the other partners. “With the withdrawal of the SBB, it could be more difficult for us to convince our neighboring communities to co-finance.”
The Surse city council does not want to give up yet. According to Venetz, they will seek talks with SBB again, if necessary through political channels. Because for the site manager it is clear: “The Velostation is a central component of the overall project.”
Voting planned for May 2022
But the costs could be tough for Sursee. At the community assembly, one citizen stated that it was quite expensive to build 1,400 additional bicycle spaces for 10.8 million Swiss francs. According to Venetz, not only will new and more modern bike spaces be created for the money, but more space will also be created. “The space at the train station is very tight, we have to rely on creating a lot of bicycle spaces underground.” Furthermore, it is important to realize both projects – Velostation and Busof – together. This is the only way for the overall concept to work. One should also not forget that the Sursee train station is the second most important traffic junction in the canton of Lucerne. Up to 20,000 people would use it every day.
Whether the city council can convince the SBB and neighboring communities of the project remains to be seen in December. Then he would like to pass the voting message with a special loan. An extraordinary community meeting will take place on March 14th, and a ballot will be held on May 15th. Construction is to begin at the end of 2022. The opening of the “attractive entrance gate” is scheduled for mid-2025.
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