Activists will launch a campaign for a second referendum on the train station in Brno

Brno - Activists will launch a campaign next week for a second referendum on the location of the main railway station in Brno. The Green Party club will propose the new voting session to the council on Tuesday. If the proposal is rejected, civil initiatives will start collecting signatures, needing just over 20,000. The voting can be combined with the autumn municipal elections, members of the Civic Alliance Referendum 2014 said to reporters today.
   "Given that the majority of the Brno public has long been against the relocation and against the one-sided approach of the city hall, we have no doubt that we will be able to trigger the referendum," said Jakub Patočka from the Masaryk Democratic Academy. The Children of the Earth and other associations are also advocating for the referendum, while many activists who initiated the original vote disagree with its repetition.
    The expert and political debate about the location of the main railway station in Brno has been ongoing for decades. The first option is the modernization of the station in the center, and the second is building a new one in a relocated position. In the voting ten years ago, the majority of people expressed support for the station in the center, but few showed up at the polls. The referendum was invalid, and preparations for the relocation of the railway node, including zoning proceedings, continued. However, the law has changed since then, and a turnout of 35 percent of voters is now sufficient for validity.
    City officials reiterated last year that they still plan for the station to be in a relocated position by the river. According to Patočka, Mayor Roman Onderka (ČSSD) did not respond to last year's open letter from activists. It is still unclear how many councilors will support the Greens' effort to declare a referendum without the need for a signature drive on Tuesday. "The ČSSD club will discuss this topic on Monday at its meeting," Onderka told ČTK.
    In the referendum, according to Patočka, Brno residents would answer two questions: whether they wish for Brno to modernize the current node at Nádražní Street, and whether a specific solution should be determined through a series of open design competitions. Civil initiatives place a strong emphasis on transparent competitions. "Open competitions will prevent contracts related to the modernization of the station from being purposefully awarded to politically connected business fraternities," said architect Jan Sapák.
    Some initiators of the original voting disagree with the new referendum. "This initiative comes at a time when we are constantly waiting for the two-year-prepared comparison of our central variant with the relocated variant, after which there will be a professional and political debate followed by a decision from the involved parties regarding their final stance on the outcome," said Svatopluk Bartík, media coordinator for the coalition Station in the Center. According to Patočka, however, any outcome of the study does not guarantee that politicians will actually adhere to it. "The only way to definitively resolve this is through a public vote," Patočka believes.
    The reconstruction of the railway node in Brno has been in preparation for decades, and there is still a lack of funds for it. Estimated costs are between 15 and 25 billion crowns, depending on the chosen solution.