The big news at last night’s town council public meeting was the formal presentation of a new lift development connecting Morzine and Avoriaz. The current Mayor has expressed his desire to better connect the two resorts for a number of years, and as far back as 2009 we heard rumours of a new telepherique to link the two together. However, although those responsible for the resort’s development have approved the final plan for the new lift, there are likely to be a number of legal objections which could delay construction for a long time. More on this to follow…
We’ll update this article with the official video presentation as soon as we have it.
The new lift development plan is known as Project Morzine Avoriaz 2020 and the commencement of construction is planned for 2019 with completions scheduled for 2021. The budget for the new development is a staggering €35 million with a further €11.6 million to be spent on surrounding infrastructure. The base station will be located at the top of the Rue du Bourg, opposite the opticians and to the right of the current Odlo shop. Beneath the new lift station in the area known as La Plan (the current Carrefour carpark) will be a new bus station.
To better connect the new lift station and Pleney, a tunnel / escalator will be built so that skiers and snowboarders don’t need to walk across the resort.
In other news…
Investments will be made in improving the Super Morzine sector of Morzine, commencing in 2018 and spanning the following 10 years. From 2025 onwards, new lifts and new pistes will be created within the Morzine ski area, with both Tour and Choucas highlighted for development. In total, €147.9 million has been allocated to the development of piste and lift infrastructure in Morzine-Avoriaz over the next 20 years.
There’ll be lots of work on the roads within the village centre and on the outskirts of the resort this summer. Key developments include adding a pavement to the Poute de la Plagne, widening the Route d’Avoriaz (work has already commenced), 600 new parking spaces within a 5 minute walk of the Pleney lift and modifications to the roundabout next to the Mairie.
Fibre optic broadband cables are currently being laid across the resort, a new service will be available first to business owners and then residents from the beginning of 2018. Discussions are currently taking place to connect surrounding villages to the new network.
There’ll be a significant rearrangement of bus routes in the future, with three main stops / hubs – Pleney, La Crusaz and Le Plan (in the Carrefour carpark). Currently, all bus routes go through Morzine, some routes will be rearranged to avoid this and to reduce the volume of traffic going through the resort. The overall objective is to connect all parts of the route with a 10 minute journey.
Questions we asked…
(There wasn’t a huge amount of time for questions and the meeting ended quite late, but we managed to ask many of the questions our readers sent us in advance of the meeting)
There appears to have been a rise in the level of theft across the resort this winter. What’s being done to prevent this?
- Additional CCTV has been installed across the resort, though currently the skate park is without coverage
The resort needs more summer development as other European mountain resorts are upping their game significantly. What are you doing to enhance our summer offering?
- Discussions are currently taking place with the Pleney Lift Company, however closing dates are restricted by the need to maintain the lifts after the summer season and before the winter season
Are there any plans to pedestrianise the Rue du Bourg?
- No, not currently
