I don't know any other country that complains so much about road traffic and manages it so poorly. Our authorities want to ban cars, but over 80% of Swiss households own at least one, so it doesn't work. And the measures put in place, particularly road obstacles like flower pots or speed bumps (which are polluting: braking, stopping and accelerating pollute, as does brake wear, tyre wear and noise), no-entry signs or road closures, prevent optimal use of the road network. In other words, we're hindering traffic instead of making it flow smoothly.

Multimodality would be a solution, but unfortunately the system is implemented without taking cars into account. The SBB (Swiss Federal Railways) have closed their car parks (in Morges, Lausanne), which is absurd, but they have favoured the construction of more profitable buildings.

In itself, I would rather be in favour of subsidising public transport in order to reduce its cost for the end user and make it more competitive compared to cars. Because if traffic isn't decreasing, it's largely because cars remain too attractive for many journeys. In terms of mobility, the ready-made solution from environmentalists is systematically to tax, ban or create obstacles (which also penalises buses, by the way), so for once this would be a change.

But when I see the proposed subsidy for the Basel<>Malmö night service, a journey that will only concern a tiny minority of individuals, I think we're not ready to make progress for the Swiss citizen who simply wants to get to work, in their own country, and who would be looking for an alternative to the car in their daily life.

So subsidising, why not? But do it intelligently.