Brno activists reject both options for the new train station

Brno - Activists from the civic alliance Referendum 2014, who are striving to call a referendum on the location of the new Brno railway station during the autumn municipal elections, reject both the riverside variant and the location under Petrov. According to them, the entire project needs to start completely from scratch, said Jakub Patočka, chairman of the petition committee from the Masaryk Democratic Academy, to reporters today.
    The current train station, which has its capacity exhausted during peak hours, is sufficient and will last for many more years, according to architect Jan Sapák. "No crisis situation will arise here," he proclaimed.
    The goal of the planned plebiscite, according to Patočka, is to reject the variant of the station by the river, approximately 800 meters south of the existing one, and also to initiate a debate on a completely new project. He did not specify when such a station could theoretically be built, but stated that it would be "sooner than if we tried to relocate the station."
    The Czech Republic has committed to the European Commission to construct major transport infrastructure by 2030. "That is the timeframe within which the station should be built, but nothing will happen if it is a year or two later," said Miroslav Patrik, chairman of the association Children of the Earth, which participates in the activities of the alliance.
    The call for a referendum is also supported by Brno’s TOP 09, the Greens, the new association of independent candidates A co Brno? and the Pirates. They all agreed that they want to make the referendum and the new station the main electoral theme and reject limiting the debate about the station to two variants, for which studies have already been commissioned by the Railway Infrastructure Administration (SŽDC). However, the alliance does not have its own specific vision. "We want to start from scratch and we want the project to be prepared within an open urban competition," said Patočka.
    He admitted that the only reason for wanting the referendum at the same time as the elections is voter turnout. For the referendum to be binding for city politicians, at least 35% of voters must participate. To compel the representatives to call the citizen vote, it is necessary to gather about 19,000 signatures from Brno residents. The alliance currently has over 10,000. In case there are issues with the validity of all signatures, they prefer to have at least 21,000. A referendum on the location of the station took place in Brno ten years ago, but the result was not binding due to low participation.
    There is already a third zoning decision issued for the station by the river, against which appeals have been submitted. "We are waiting for the administrative proceedings at the magistrate to conclude, and we are prepared to file a lawsuit," Patrik stated. SŽDC has also prepared two equivalent studies for both planned variants and will commission a feasibility study.
    The mayor’s deputy Robert Kotzian (ODS) previously stated that it is practically certain that the EU will cover most of the costs for the variant of the station chosen by the investor, that is, the state. Brno is currently listed in the documents of the European transport strategy as a junction of two trans-European railway corridors. The cost of the new station is estimated at around 20 billion crowns for both variants. However, Kotzian warned that financing is secured only for the programming period 2014 to 2020. "What will happen in Europe afterwards, no one knows," he said.