François Bausch, Luxembourg's Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Mobility and Public Works; Credit: SIP

Luxembourg's Ministry of Mobility and Public Works has announced a cross-border bus rapid transit (BRT), also called a busway, linking the Alzette valley (France-Luxembourg) to the CFL train station in Esch-sur-Alzette and to the future rapid tram.

During a public presentation of the future rapid tram and its multimodal context, held digitally on Wednesday, Luxembourg's Minister of Mobility and Public Works, François Bausch, and the Mayor of Esch-sur-Alzette, Georges Mischo, presented the concept of a cross-border busway connecting the upper valley of the River Alzette to the Esch-sur-Alzette train station and the rapid tram.

The analyses underway for the National Mobility Plan 2035 showed that the projected demand for cross-border mobility requires a substantial improvement compared to the current supply.

On the French side of the valley, the strongest demographic growth will take place around Audun-le-Tiche station, especially in Micheville. On the Luxembourg side, the “Lentille Terre-Rouge” district and the Esch-Schifflange wastelands will become both destinations and important origins of local and regional travel. Considering that the upper valley of the River Alzette could count as many residents in 2035 as the City of Esch-sur-Alzette has today, it would be necessary to improve the access of these localities to the CFL station in Esch-sur-Alzette and create attractive links with the future rapid tram as well as with the “express” cycle paths.

The cross-border busway will thus shuttle between the Micheville exchange hub, the P&R of Audun-le-Tiche, the “Lentille Terre-Rouge” district, the CFL station in Esch-sur-Alzette, the Esch-Schifflange wastelands with their tram stop and the “East-West” busway connecting Pétange to Dudelange, as well as the future interchange hub (tram, RGTR, P&R) planned near the Monkeler business area on the A4 motorway.

In addition to directly serving these key destinations, the cross-border busway will have the following substantial advantages compared to the existing rail shuttle:

- on the main corridor of the cross-border busway, a rate of five minutes will be possible due to the superimposition of several bus lines which will pick up many residents of the upper valley as close as possible to their homes;

- the reliability of an attractive journey time will be guaranteed by a clean site through the wasteland district of Esch-Schifflange, a substantial calming of traffic in front of the Esch-sur-Alzette station and a clean site using the base of the current rail shuttle to Audun:

- the replacement of the rail shuttle by the cross-border busway will create the possibility of additional stops; it will also mean the opening up of the “Hiel” district due to the disappearance of the level crossing.

Luxembourg's Mobility Minister and the Mayor of Esch-sur-Alzette explained that this project not only represents an attractive multimodal mobility offer, but is also a necessary condition for urban development on both sides of the border and for the emergence of a true cross-border conurbation.

The implementation schedule will depend in particular on the talks that Minister François Bausch will start with French politicians.