Public tours Geneva rail mega-project work sites

The 16-kilometre Cornavin-Eaux-Vives-Annemasse (CEVA) route, dubbed Geneva's “project of the century”, remains far from being finished, although critical work on tunnels and train stations has been completed.

Geneva cantonal officials said on Saturday and Sunday a total of 32,382 people visited five construction sites on Saturday and Sunday on the Geneva section of the 1.72-billion-franc ($1.75 billion) project.

Scheduled to partially open in 2017 and fully open in December 2019, CEVA is designed to link Geneva’s main train station with the neighbouring French city of Annemasse, providing connections to Geneva's suburbs and other cities in France, including Annecy, Thonon-les-Bains and Evian.

Seven stations are located along the route, which crosses the Arve River, providing a new public transportation backbone for Geneva.

Extensive tunnelling includes work for the station at Carouge-Bachet, located 16 metres below ground.

Work on the entire project is almost half completed.

Around 500 people are employed on the various construction sites involving 161 companies, the ATS news agency reported.

The federal government is covering 56 percent of the 1.5-billion-franc budget for the Swiss part of the CEVA, with the canton of Geneva picking up the rest.

French authorities are financing the 234-million-franc cost of work in France, including modernization of the Annemasse train station and upgrading of the rail line to Evian, on the south side of Lake Geneva.