Swiss Reject Second Gotthard Road TunnelSwiss voters rejected on 8th February a proposal to expand roads to ease Alpine bottlenecks, including the addition of a second tunnel under the Gotthard mountain. The road building proposal was rejected by 62.8% of voters nationwide. All the 26 cantons voted against. The initiative, backed by the government and parliament, faced strong opposition from environmentalists who claimed the plans would only lead to more trucks clogging narrow Alpine valleys between Germany and Italy. Kilometres of waiting cars and trucks build up at the entrances to the Gotthard tunnel, especially when Germans and other northern Europeans are heading to or from vacations in Italy. Environmentalists succeeded in passing a 1994 referendum initiative committing Switzerland to protecting the Alps from such pressure. Opponents argue that a second road tunnel through the Gotthard is unnecessary, costly and contravenes Switzerland's policy of protecting the Alps.The move was a counter-proposal to the so-called Avanti initiative, which was launched in 2000 and called for a second road tunnel through the Gotthard. The initiative was later withdrawn after the government came up with its own plans, in which up to SFr350 million of public money would be set aside annually to tackle traffic congestion. But parliament forced the government to include the possibility of building a second tunnel in its proposals. 09/04. Traffic jams at the Gotthard tunnel