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City plans metro expansion

Network extension includes a new line and airport link

By Kimberly Ashton
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
September 5th, 2007 issue

Prague officials want to expand the A line of the metro to Ruzyně Airport in a 40 billion Kč ($2 billion) project that could be paid for, in part, by European Union funds.
Officials plan to spend 15 billion Kč in city money to start building the A line extension in 2009 to Petřiny, according to Eva Dydová, a spokeswoman at the Prague Transport Agency.
It could take until 2018 to complete the 14-kilometer (8.7-mile) line all the way to Ruzyně Airport, said Radovan Šteiner, city councilor for transport.
Between Dejvická and Letiště Praha–Ruzyně, the line will stop at Červený Vrch, Veleslavín, Petřiny, Motol, Bílá Hora, Dědina and Dlouhá Míle.
“The priority is building the A line to Dlouhá Míle terminal, which is of key importance for car and bus transport,” Šteiner said in a council press release. “Another benefit is the improvement of the traffic situation in Prague 6, mainly on Evropská street and in the surroundings of Vítězné náměstí, it will become calmer.”
Expanding the A line is the city’s top priority, according to the city council.
Including more of Prague 4
But officials are also discussing building a completely new, fourth metro line.
“Building both stretches of the metro is very important for the city,” Šteiner says.
Construction of the D line will begin in 2010, according to Dydová.  
The first stretch will run about 5 kilometers from Pankrác through Olbrachtova, Nádraží Krč, and Zálesí to Nové Dvory and will cost 18.5 billion Kč.
The next stage will extend the line from Nové dvory through Libuš to the terminus at Písnice.
The last phase will take the line from Pankrác to Hlavní nádraží via Náměstí míru, where it will provide a connection to the A line and Náměstí bratří Synků.
The entire 11-kilometer line is expected to cost 40 billion Kč, as well, Šteiner said.
The city wants to create a public-private partnership to pay for the line, Dydová said.
With such a system, a private investor would pay to build the new line then take in the revenues until it’s paid off. After that, the city would own the line.
Under the public-private aspect, the new line would still be covered by the city’s public transportation system, including the metro pass.
A ‘classic modern’ approach
Prague officials are currently looking at other European metro systems to see if a traditional subway, which runs deep underground, would be a better option for the new line than a “light metro,” which runs closer to the surface and can navigate tighter turns.
“According to the preliminary results, we think the best thing would be a classic modern underground that combines the features of the classic underground and light underground,” Dydová said.
But the city has taken one thing from the analysis so far: “We plan to run the trains without conductors,” she said.
While the city gears up to expand the A line and build the D line, it will continue work on the C line, where construction began in 2004 to extend the line from Ládví to Letňany, at a cost of 15.5 billion Kč.
— Hela Balínová and Naďa Černá contributed to this report.

Kimberly Ashton can be reached at kashton@praguepost.com


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