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Ticket to ride

Metro expansion aimed at getting commuters out of cars

By Ondřej Bouda
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
May 7th, 2008 issue

JAN PŘEROVSKÝ/THE PRAGUE POST
The station at Letňany is the last stop on the extended C line, and will feature a bus terminal and a ?park and ride? lot for cars.
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Three futuristic-looking metro stations set to open Thursday on the C line are designed to entice commuters out of their cars, transport officials say.
The new stations north of town took four years to build and cost taxpayers 15 billion Kč ($927.1 million).
The Střížkov, Prosek and Letňany stations extend the C line, or red line, to almost 23 kilometers (14 miles) across the city. They’re the latest links in a decade-long public transport expansion plan that includes a new “fast train” link to Ruzyně Airport to be built by 2013.
A new terminal for incoming buses and a “park and ride” lot for cars will also open at Letňany, the last stop on its line, making the city center accessible in 20 minutes from the suburbs.
“Our goal is to stop all incoming traffic on the outskirts of Prague and provide a viable means of transport for visitors and commuters,” said Jaromír Voska, technical director of the new metro stations.
But at the same time, the future remains uncertain for more than half of the city’s other public transport expansion plans, according to reports in the Czech media.
Prague Public Transit Company is short 6 billion Kč that it budgeted for other expansion projects, Karel Březina, a member of the public transit authority told Právo newspaper.
New stations have shops and restaurants, as well as state-of-the-art security measures to protect riders.
The Prosek station has a special fire wall, for example, which is designed to descend automatically in case of a fire in the operations section. That means the trains can continue running, Voska said.
“If the fire is too severe, there is even a special cooling mechanism for the wall, which should give firefighters more time to douse the flames without endangering metro services,” Voska said.
Letňany station was built to service the Prague Exhibition Center, which is expected to be a key location if Prague wins its discussed bid for the 2016 Olympics. A new national stadium could also be built close by.
Special wide platforms were built to accommodate possible Olympic crowds. At the moment, however, a blocked exit from the station leads to an empty field. Metro employees jokingly call it “Marmot Station,” since it doesn’t lead anywhere except to a bunch of gopher holes.
“There was a colony of marmots here, and Green Party activists were against the construction,” said Voska.
All systems have fail-safe measures built to keep the trains running on time.
“We cannot allow the trains to stop,” Voska said. “Surface traffic would collapse without the metro, since it carries millions of passengers every day.”
As a final safety precaution, a computerized system can be operated manually with 57 turns of a special handle.
It is not clear how long the construction of the A line expansion to Ruzyně Airport is going to take. Officials in September estimated the cost of the extension at about 40 billion Kč. It could be paid for, in part, by European Union funds, transport officials said.

Ondřej Bouda can be reached at news@praguepost.com


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Reader's comments:

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[07:49 20/05/2008] : If asked, I would vote for train. However, the time period needed for all necessary permits from all institutions involved to be collected would suffice to dig the metro tunnel up to Kladno and back. And we, Czechs, do know how to tunnel fast!


PP
Prague
[11:37 21/05/2008] : If possible, can you please explain some more background situations?
Nishikawara Y.
Kuala Lumpur
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