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Airport rail, metro links planned

Transportation officials are one step closer to linking downtown Prague, Ruzyne

Travelers will have an easier time getting to and from Ruzyne airport after metro line A is extended and high-speed rail is in place.
By Petra Pasternak
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
(July 1, 2004)


After years of battling over whether Prague's city center should be connected to Ruzyne airport by metro or rail, transportation officials have resolved the debate -- in favor of both.

At a June 17 meeting, the Prague Transportation Department determined that the proposed high-speed train service connecting Prague and Kladno via the airport should not derail the westward extension of metro line A extension to Ruzyne.

"The Transportation Department rejected the either/or debate," said Frantisek Laudat, chairman of the city transportation committee. "We officially declared that the railway and the metro are two separate systems fulfilling separate functions."

The committee affirmed the need to modernize and add an airport stop to the dilapidated Bustehrad rail line, which cuts west through the city from Masaryk Train Station and rolls on to Kladno. But they decided the metro extension was needed not only for an airport link but also to address other urgent transit problems, including traffic congestion in Prague 6 and the fact that urban districts south and west of Dejvice are served only by bus.

Although the meeting produced no concrete plans to advance either project, there was relief among committee members. "Though we were hoping for a more fundamental ruling, we are grateful that we found understanding among the city officials," said Deputy Prague 6 Mayor Jaroslava Trnkova. She called the session a "big step forward."
THE ROADS AHEAD

After years of debate, the Prague Transportation Committee agreed June 17 to pursue two separate center-airport links rather than one or the other:


Metro

• What: Line A (the green line) extended from Dejvicka station west to Ruzyne airport

• How much: 20 billion Kc ($760 million)

• Who pays: Primarily the city of Prague


High-speed rail

• What: Modernization of Bustehrad rail line from Prague to Kladno, with a new airport stop

• How much: 25 billion Kc

• Who pays: Proposed mix of state, EU and private funds

Progress on a downtown-airport link has stalled at City Hall for several years thanks to the bickering among Prague, its districts, the city of Kladno and Ceske drahy -- all shareholders in PRAK, the private company established in 1993 to finance the project. Currently the only public-transit connections to Ruzyne are bus lines from the Dejvicka and Zlicin metro stops.

Cost estimates for the gradual modernization of the Bustehrad railway hover around 20 billion Kc ($760 million). The cost of the extension of metro line A is anybody's guess, Laudat said, but early estimates peg the figure around 25 billion Kc. "No one knows when actual construction will begin," he said. "And construction costs are climbing."

Prague 6, facing a veritable traffic crisis, has staunchly supported the extension of metro line A from its end stop at Dejvicka to outlying neighborhoods. The planned new rail service would have bypassed those neighborhoods, providing no relief to the district's 100,000 residents, said Trnkova.

While sympathetic to the problems of Prague 6, Kladno city officials pushed to make a fast, direct city-to-city link a higher priority. "Between 50,000 and 70,000 people make the trip to Prague from Kladno and back every day," said Karel Vysehradsky, Kladno's top transit official. "We need a high-capacity city-center connection."

Meanwhile, Prague city officials, facing other transportation crises, have moved an airport link to the slow lane. "It's not been a hot priority," Laudat said. "We have enough crisis areas to focus on." Among them is the proposed metro line D from Pisnice to Hlavni Nadrazi via Namesti Miru. Talks on that project are in the final phases.

There are two proposed routes on the table for the extension of metro line A, the green line, from its end station in Dejvice west to the Ruzyne airport. Both would take the track toward Cerveny Vrch and the Petriny district. There they diverge -- one loops to take in Motol hospital and Bila Hora and then cuts north to the Dlouha Mile junction and, eventually, the airport; the other shoots straight from Petriny to Dlouha Mile.

Supporters of the longer route say it opens the possibility for a metro spur to Zlicin, the southwestern terminus of line B. "Under this proposal, the metro would be filling its function as a city transportation system," Laudat said.

Both proposals envision a transit hub at the airport linking the metro with the Bustehrad railway, which officials say is in dire need of repair.

The federal Transportation Ministry would like to see Sprava zeleznicni dopravni cesty, the government agency that operates the Kladno-Prague railway, run the project with funding from the state and the European Union.

"A decision needs to be made soon so that preparatory work can finally begin," Laudat said. Officials estimate work could begin in 2006.

Petra Pasternak can be reached at ppasternak@praguepost.com




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