When developing urban areas, one ofthe key issues to consider is that oftraffic. The provision of well-planned,adequate transport infrastructure iskey to dealing with the levels of trafficgenerated by a major urban area. Theissue of accessibility is also important,and transport infrastructure can helpensure an urban area is made fullyaccessible both internally and externally.This research by Pierre Stämpfli, whichformed part of his Master thesis atthe Centre for Urban & Real EstateManagement (CUREM), Zurich, aimedto analyse the relationship betweenlarge infrastructure and urbandevelopment by using the exampleof Geneva’s city bypass, which openedin 1993, as a real case study.Covering an area of approximately41,000 km2, Switzerland is a landlockedcountry in Western Europe,home to some 7.5 million people.As a federal republic, it is divided into26 states, referred to as Cantons.While Berne is Switzerland’s capital,its economic centres are the citiesof Zurich and Geneva.The city of Geneva, the capital of theCanton of Geneva, is the second mostprosperous city after Zurich. Genevais located in what has been called the‘metropole lemanique’, an area that isdeveloping around Lake Geneva andhome to approximately 1.5 millioninhabitants. Being a growing urbanarea, there are many large-scaleinfrastructure developments underwaythere. One of the major developmentprojects in Geneva has been thegovernment’s attempts to deal with thecity’s traffic problems. The main routesinto the city, from the north and thesouth, were originally unconnectedand consequently traffic had to comeinto the city when in transit.The main findings were that:• The urban form is heterogeneousand strongly influenced by thebuilding regulations prevailingin the different construction zones• Urban sprawling was happening,as in other modern cities, butthe correlation with the newinfrastructure couldn’t bedemonstrated• There is no obvious relationshipbetween the construction of themotorway and urban developmentin the canton of Geneva.
