May a cyclist or a pedestrian cross from Switzerland to France near the Basel EuroAirport without going into the airport?
- By
- Aparna Patel
- |
- 28 Jul, 2023
- |
I don’t live in Basel anymore, so I cannot completely vouch for this. But there used to be a small pedestrian/bicycle path branching off to the left from Flughafenstrasse (coming from the Basel side; 47°34'29.2"N 7°33'44.0"E), right at the border. Following this path for about 100 meters you can then turn right and you’re in France. As far as I know there was nothing sketchy about this path, but this was at least six years ago so things might have changed, or perhaps my memory fails me.
It seems to be possible to cross over to the French side via the S3/F6 parking lot (as identified by @jcaron). As per Google Maps there are "no entry" signs on the road there, but presumably its okay for bicycles to cross over. Here’s how it looks like on Google Maps:
And Apple Maps shows a similar picture:
So just turn right before you enter the airport, cross over via the parking lot and after that you’re on the French side. Alternatively, take the side road headed towards the gas station (Autopole) and cross over there.
How close must you be to the airport? I haven’t been there, but on aerial photos, there appear to be several unblocked places to cross on the southwest side of the airport. My images were too large to upload, but there was (1) a sidewalk disappearing under trees at the border, with Rue St.-Exupéry ending at the same place; (2) further southwest, Im Burgfelderhof crosses the border and joins Rue de Romains which follows the border; (3) nearby, it looks like you can go through or around the Burgfelderhof tram stop to cross Rue de Romains and get on N266.
I’m not surprised it’s not possible to cross between Switzerland and France in a car around the Euroairport (though I’m also not sure why it’s like this)
Route douanière is technically on the French territory, but you are in Switzerland with respect to immigration (which is less of a problem after Swiss accession to Schengen) and customs (which is very important, particularly for the companies dealing with physical goods in Swiss sector of the airport). This is why there are fences and barriers surrounding the road.
The road is first and foremost the treaty-required customs-free Swiss service road for the Swiss sector of the airport. The idea is you should only use the road for the airport (or airport-related businesses operating in Swiss customs territory) and that’s why France agreed to "cede" the territory.
Technically they could probably open crossings along it (I didn’t read the bilateral agreement in detail), but there are few incentives.
From Google streetview it doesn’t appear to be any obvious places where you can cross. Other than customs reasons, airports and many airport-related businesses also have other requirements for aviation security reasons, so a crossing point is probably unlikely.
For the legal provisions:
Art. 7 Route douanière
- L’aéroport sera relié directement à la frontière franco-suisse par une route
affectée à son trafic. L’aéroport et la route seront séparés par une clôture du reste du territoire douanier français. Sous réserve des dispositions qui seront éventuellement
arrêtées d’un commun accord en vue de son utilisation pour le trafic général, cette route
fera partie du secteur affecté aux services suisses conformément aux articles 2 et 8.
Art. 7 Route douanière
- The airport shall be connected directly to the French-Swiss border by a road dedicated to its traffic. The airport and the road shall be separated by a fence from the rest of the French customs territory. Subject to any possible provisions mutually agreed for its use for general traffic, this road shall form part of the sector assigned to Swiss services in accordance with Articles 2 and 8.
As far as I could find, no agreement on its use for general traffic was made so it remains a dedicated service road. It doesn’t in principle prohibit pedestrian crossings for the fences though, now Switzerland is in Schengen.
Credit:stackoverflow.com‘
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