Grandson is a Swiss town on the lake of Neuchâtel, located close to Yverdon and 45 km North of Lausanne. The importance of its railway station was to increase considerably with a RER service providing quicker connections to nearby towns and integrating with the further network. The connecting local bus services were also to be reorganized and improved.
The project aimed to redesign the station plaza to provide a new bus terminal and an overall comfortable and legible interface, facilitating intermodal connections and providing a quality public space.
The project has been developed by Citec Ingénieurs Conseils (transportation engineer), Strata (urban planner), In Situ (landscape architect) et Perret+Gentil (civil engineer). Beyond the given goals, the team sought to find a solution that would also play the role of a “town entrance”, clearly indicating the drivers that they enter an urban context, with a mixed use and a variety of modes, in opposition with the 80 km/h cantonal road they are leaving. This change was to be shown through urban design and solutions were to be found to achieve this goal despite a high speed limit by the railway station (50 km/h).
The bus interface was conceived as a shared space on a level surface excepted the platform. The whole redesign provides direct and legible routes for the pedestrian and bike flows accessing the station, changing from one mode to the other or transiting. It has also been thought to be compatible with the middle- and long-term modifications (new access to the platforms # 2 and 3, possible future new railway station building).
Tamara Bozovic was the transportation engineer on this project for Citec Ingénieurs Conseils. She worked on the actual diagnosis and the variants drafts, evaluations and improvements with the team. Illustration: draft project extract – Citec Ingénieurs Conseils, Strata, In Situ (paysagiste) and Perret+Gentil.
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