The leadership of Prague has approved the contract for the completion of the city ring road

Prague - Prague will begin preparing a tender for the completion of a section of the inner ring road between Pelc-Tyrolka and Štěrboholy. The councilors decided on this today. The projected costs are estimated to be 350 million, and if everything goes according to plan, construction should start in 2024 and finish in 2031. The contract was also supported by councilors from the Triple Coalition, despite their initial reservations about the proposal. The representatives will discuss the press not on Thursday, but at the November meeting, after the parliamentary elections.

"The proposal passed with coalition support, that is, with the support of all parties," stated the deputy mayor for transport Petr Dolínek (Social Democratic Party), who unsuccessfully tried to get the contract approved last week at an extraordinary council meeting. At that time, he faced resistance from the Triple Coalition, which had earlier pushed for a study of an alternative ring route. This study is expected to be completed by the middle of next year.

After the study is processed, the city should decide whether to choose the existing project, which already has a valid environmental impact assessment (EIA), or the surface solution proposed by the Triple Coalition. "If there is a different transport solution, the city can withdraw from the contract," said Dolínek.

To give the representatives time to study the press, the coalition will present it only at the following parliament meeting in November. The opposing TOP 09 criticized this. "This is an absolutely outrageous manipulation of the topic, where everyone wants to pretend they want the ring road, but they are just pushing it off until after the elections," stated the head of the TOP 09 parliamentary group Václav Novotný. He added that his party would be advocating for an immediate discussion of the contract at Thursday's council meeting.

The route concerning the contract, which is preferred by the Social Democratic Party and ANO, consists of three sections. The first is a 3.2-kilometer stretch from Pelc-Tyrolka to Balabenka, where two tunnels are planned. The second section between Balabenka and Štěrboholská will have one tunnel, and the third part is a 1.35-kilometer-long Libeň connector. There, the tunnel would measure 865 meters. If the city ultimately chooses this variant, in an ideal scenario it should obtain territorial decision in 2021 and a building permit in 2023.

The alternative route preferred by the Triple Coalition is based on an older proposal from the city's Institute of Planning and Development and would be mostly above ground. It calls for routing traffic along two existing routes. One would lead from Pelc-Tyrolka along Povltavská Street towards Českobrodská and would include a new tunnel under Malešice. The other would guide drivers from Holešovičky through the Industrial semi-ring. Only a stretch of approximately 3.5 kilometers, including a new tunnel, would need to be constructed.

The city, or the inner ring road, is built from its own resources. It operates along the section from Pelc-Tyrolka through the Blanka tunnel towards Prague 6 and 5 and Strahovský tunnel and Mrázovka up to Barrandov Bridge and the South connection. On the eastern edge of the city, it ends at Štěrboholská radial. The first part of the ring began operating in the 1980s, and the tunnel complex Blanka was last opened in September 2015.