THE TRANSPORT ALTERNATIVE FOR PRAGUE
The Coalition of Citizens’ Associations SOS Prague
English Summary
Editorial
The city of Prague is becoming increasingly congested
by automobile transport. Health regulation limits for air pollution and noise
are exceeded in many locations. The quality of public space in the streets is
deteriorating. Life among the buildings is growing unpleasant. The planned
construction of more roads through the use of large amounts of public funds, as
well as the construction of needed but poorly designed routes is unlikely to
help the city.
We are convinced that good public transport does solve
urban environmental and land-use problems. Examples from large cities abroad
show that, combined with the regulation of individual automobile transport,
this is an effective solution which has gained the support of the general
public as well.
The Coalition of Citizens’ Associations SOS Prague has
developed this CD-ROM for representatives of public administration, specialists
in urban planning, transport and the environment, journalists, and all engaged
residents of Prague. Its objective is to provide them with specific arguments
showing that the current transport policy will not solve Prague’s transport problems, and to present concrete proposals
for positive solutions.
The CD is divided into two parts. The first includes
presentations given at the Transport Alternative for Prague seminar held
in the Senate. The second part – Documents – provides information and materials
related to Prague’s transport policy.
We hope that you will find the information provided of
interest, and that your work will contribute to promoting positive solutions
for improving the quality of life in Prague.
On behalf of the Coalition of Citizens’ Associations
SOS Prague
Petra
Kolínská
coordinator
of the SOS Prague Centre
April
2004
The
Coalition enables its members to share their experience, exchange information
and offer each other expert support. The aim of the Coalition is to enhance
cooperation between citizens and citizens’ associations and to promote their
active communication with local government.
Demands of the SOS Prague Coalition
1.
We call on UNESCO to
send experts in urban planning to assess the impact of the city ring and
connected radial roads on the historical centre of Prague and its
secondary protection zones.
2.
We request that
independent experts quantify the impact of building the city ring and
radial roads on the transport flow within the city. The strategy of the city’s
transport experts is in contradiction with the declarations and principles of
its transport policy. For example, the “Optimum Version” presented during the
approval process of the land-use plan predicts a higher increase in traffic on
city streets than on the outer ring road.
3.
We therefore demand
that an environmental impact assessment (EIA) be carried out for Prague’s
transport system. It is entirely against the intent of the law that roads
with much lower traffic volumes, which in non-built-up areas are subject to EIA
review, can avoid the EIA process by merely being renamed as ‘local roads’.
4.
We demand that source-differentiated
maps of traffic-induced air pollution be submitted. During the approval
procedure for Prague’s land-use plan, no separate maps of air pollution from
traffic were submitted in addition to maps showing only pollution from
stationary sources and background pollution. The submitted maps assume that
important stationary sources will be closed and that there will be a
significant decrease of emissions from cars – despite their increasing numbers,
there will allegedly be no increased pollution from mobile sources (cars).
5.
The construction of
‘heavy’ systems is demanding in terms of operating costs and maintenance. We
call on the responsible municipal representatives to submit a system for
funding transport infrastructure, a timetable of loans and their repayment,
and a budget including maintenance and operating costs, and to optimise
investments according to actual circumstances.
6.
Let us benefit from
examples of good practice abroad – Zurich,
Vienna, Berlin, Copenhagen, Oslo, London and other cities provide us with
inspiration worth following.
Summary of seminar presentations
Transport Alternative For Prague
Senate of the Czech Republic, April 2004
TRANSPORT IN PRAGUE – SOME UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTIONS
In the opening presentation of the
seminar, Michaela Valentová summarises the reasons why numerous citizens’
associations and Prague residents do not agree with the implementation of the
city’s transport policy – in particular the non-existent regulation of
automobile transport in the broader centre of Prague and the related
significant exceeding of air pollution and noise limits, the planning of
financially unfeasible large-capacity roads (the city ring and connected radial
roads) that will increase the number of cars coming into the city centre, and
the conflict of interest and corruption associated with large construction
projects. The presentation concludes with six specific appeals to the
responsible political and municipal decision-makers.
e-mail: michaela.valentova@ecn.cz
THOSE WHO SOW ROADS, WILL REAP CARS
Petr Kurfürst’s
presentation is dedicated to transport induction and controlled demand for
transport. Empirical studies from abroad show that the larger road capacities
we offer, the more traffic will be generated, both on the new road and in the
immediate and more distant surroundings. Every road will eventually fill up,
because adding a new road gives its users the (correct) impression that they
can use it freely. In this way, new capacity induces new traffic. This
logically implies that if our aim is to reduce traffic, it is more effective to
limit road capacity. This applies analogically to other kinds of transport:
public transport, cycling, and walking. If we enhance the conditions for any
kind of transport – that is, increase its capacity and attractiveness – people
will use it more.
e-mail: petr.kurfurst@centrum.cz
AIR – A COMMON MATTER
Mária Kazmuková
from the City Development Authority of the City of Prague will present the
results of the HEAVEN project implemented with the participation of six large
cities (Berlin, Leicester, Paris, Prague, Rotterdam and Rome), as well as
industrial companies and research institutes from the EU and CEEC. The
project’s focus was the monitoring and modelling of air quality and the
development and application of a Decision Support System (DSS) which will be
able to assess the environmental impact of both the current traffic situation
and traffic control strategies. The project currently continues as part of
other EU programmes. The AIR4EU project is focused on harmonising the
monitoring and modelling of air quality; the CITEAIR project is dedicated to
joint preparation of data on air quality at the European level and to assessing
measures for enhancing the quality of air in cities.
e-mail: kazmukova@urm.mepnet.cz
THE CITY RING – A MOTORWAY IN THE CITY CENTRE
Using one section of the planned city ring (Myslbekova
– Pelc-Tyrolka) as a concrete example, Štěpán Boháč shows the weaknesses
of current road development policy. Along this route, Prague City Hall intends
to build expressway-type tunnels with a daily traffic volume of over 100,000
cars, five large traffic interchanges, and several large-capacity parking lots.
The effects of cutting through the city centre along the very edge of the urban
conservation area will be far more destructive than Prague’s magistrala
trunk road. Models of the expected burdens prepared as part of the land-use
plan in 1998, as well as figures from 2000-01, show that this section of the
city ring will funnel an enormous number of cars not only into the vicinity of
Prague Castle, but also onto numerous connecting roads in residential
neighbourhoods in Prague 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, where the permissible limits for
noise and air pollution are already being exceeded.
e-mail: stepanb@seznam.cz
The motto of architect Ivan Lejčar’s presentation
is “public transport solves environmental and land-use problems in cities.” The
first pillar of a balanced transport system is the joint work of urban planners
and transport engineers ‘at one table’, where they together tackle the issues
of the second and third pillar. The second pillar is reduction of automobile
transport and the third is massive support of public transport. The basic means
towards achieving this goal are competitive quality of services offered by
public transport as compared to private automobile transport, the humanisation
of the street environment, and the development of cycling. The paper presents
two concrete examples of change and their practical implementation abroad.
e-mail: alejcar@c-box.cz
Štěpán Boháč
analyses investments into the construction of roads since 1998. According to
the current land-use plan, the thoroughfare road network consists of the
‘motorway ring road’, the ‘city ring’ and seven radial roads. According to
Prague’s land-use plan from 1999, the construction of this system was supposed
to cost 88 billion CZK. Compared to the costs stated in the land-use plan,
however, a significant increase in costs occurred during investment preparation
and actual implementation. In 1999, the land-use plan gave the costs of the
northwest segment of the city ring at 8.8 billion CZK. However, by the time of
document preparations and the planning procedure, the official estimate had
already more than doubled to 21.9 billion. In the case of the motorway ring
road, construction costs in the land-use plan turned out to have been gravely
underestimated as well. Another intriguing difference can be found in the costs
stated in the Proposal for the Development of the Transport Network of the
Czech Republic prepared by the Ministry of Transport in 2001 and in the 2002
budget of the State Transport Infrastructure Fund – although these are two
related institutions and the materials were published within several months of
each other, the cost estimates differ by several tens of percentage points!
Boháč also analyses the economic aspects of the development of public transport
and points out the financial unsustainability of further metro expansion. An
alternative is the development of light railway transport.
e-mail: stepanb@seznam.cz
Tomáš Kramár
lists specific examples of manipulation with public contracts (not only) in the
field of transport, describes Prague’s nepotistic networks, and explains the
mechanism of using mandatory companies in the implementation of public
contracts. Most frequently mentioned in the presentation are (alphabetically
listed): Dopravní podniky, headed by CEO Milan Houfek; Inženýring dopravních
staveb (IDS) and its director ing. Kvasnička; Odbor městského investora (OMI)
and its former director Jozef Macko; and councillor for transport Radovan
Šteiner, who is the chairperson of the supervisory board of IDS. Particularly
blatant is the case of the non-profitable sale of IDS stock to its top
management in 2001 and 2002 and IDS’ resulting monopoly on public contracts
from Dopravní podniky.
e-mail: stretzajmu@ecn.cz
THE LEGAL PERSPECTIVE OF TRANSPORTATION PROJECTS
Using the preparations for the Myslbekova –
Pelc-Tyrolka section of the city ring as an example, Pavel Černohous
shows how laws are breached by decision-makers and how related procedures
become perfunctory, and explains the reasons for this situation. Prague City
Hall officials have accepted the proponent’s argument that the city ring –
despite its technical parameters and function – is a local road, and have
refused to carry out an environmental impact assessment. Why? One reason may be
the fact that the project proponent is also the superior of the official in
charge of EIA procedure and for the management of the planning procedure. In
the second part of his presentation, Černohous dispels the myth of citizens’
associations ‘obstructing’ planning and construction procedures, and documents
this by showing the timetable for the EIA and planning procedures on a section
of the motorway ring road.
e-mail: atelierzp@volny.cz
Summary of texts from the Documents section
MANAGEMENT OF TRANSPORT DEMAND AS PART OF AN ENVIRONMENTALLY SOUND
TRANSPORT POLICY
See “Those who sow roads, will reap cars”.
NEW NOISE LEGISLATION AND ITS PRACTICAL APPLICATION
Act No. 258/2000 Sb. on the Protection of Public
Health effective as of 1 January 2003 prescribes new responsibilities for
providing protection from traffic-induced noise. Article 30 of the law
stipulates that owners or managers of roads are required to apply technical,
organisational, and other measures to prevent noise from exceeding the
stipulated health regulation limits for outdoor areas, residential buildings
and other buildings. Eva Tylová
focuses on meeting these requirements in practice and points out that Prague’s
responsible bodies are seriously neglecting the requirements of the law.
e-mail: eva.tylova@ecn.cz
Radim
Šrám has long been concerned with research into the impact
of air pollution on people. In his presentation, he summarises the process and
main outcomes of a research project carried out from 2000 to 2002 which
included air genotoxicity, exposure of a model population, the impact of air
pollution on pregnancies and the human sperm, and an evaluation of related
health risks. The results confirmed previous studies in the sense that air
pollution does significantly affect genetic material and reproductive
functions. It has been repeatedly proven that carcinogenic polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are
responsible for the genotoxicity of air. The outcomes also suggested that
long-term exposure to polluted air in Prague may negatively impact the health
of the population in the decades to come.
e-mail: sram@biomed.cas.cz
The motorway ring road around Prague is being built as
part of the trans-European motorway network; its primary function is to protect
Prague from transit traffic and to connect motorways, expressways and other 1st
class roads converging in a radial manner towards Prague. In his detailed
paper, Karel Čapek summarises the
main reasons why the northwest section of the ring road should follow the ‘Ss’
route as opposed to the ‘J’ alternative. The southern route – ‘J’ – cuts
through the built-up area of Suchdol and through several protected nature areas
in the city’s precious greenbelt, and is located in the immediate vicinity of
residential areas in Čimice and Dolní Chabry. The ‘Ss’ route passes for the
most part through uninhabited landscape with good dispersion conditions and is
significantly more environmentally sound, which was also confirmed by the EIA
report. The ‘J’ route is also less financially advantageous; it is more
expensive both in terms of its technically demanding construction (tunnels and
bridges) and its operating costs.
e-mail: sareckeudoli@seznam.cz
Jan
Klika’s paper is a follow-up to presentations given by
Štěpán Boháč and Ivan Lejčar on the negative impacts of the northwest segment
of the city ring, and points out the importance of the construction of the
motorway ring road, which is to divert transit traffic away from the city. At
the same time Klika criticises the fact that construction is being done in
stages, with the southwest section (Slivenec-Písnice) a priority while planning
and construction of the remaining segments has been postponed or reduced to a
minimum. It should be noted that according to the approved Strategic Plan and
the Development of the City of Prague Transport System, the northwest section
of the motorway ring road was supposed to be the first to be put into
operation.
e-mail: jan_klika@centrum.cz
PETITION FOR SAVING STROMOVKA AND LETNÁ
In the summer of 2000, the SOS Prague Coalition organised a petition
drive opposing construction of the new section of the city ring between the
Strahov tunnel and Pelc-Tyrolka (in Prague-Troja). The petition demanded that
the municipal decision-makers subject the entire proposal assessed to
environmental impact review, to consider alternatives for solving transport
issues, to cease granting exemptions from air pollution health regulation
standards, to plan an appropriate route for transit traffic outside of the
city, and to allocate more funds for improving public transit. The petition was
accompanied by questions addressed to the Council of the City of Prague. Many
of the responses were vague; for example in answer to the question “What are
the sources for funding construction and what are the amounts to be invested?”
the response was “That remains to be decided,” even though the city council was
planning to start construction the following year.
THE “CITY FOR PEOPLE” PETITION
This petition, organised by the Oživení association,
the SOS Prague Coalition, and
Prague Mothers after the 2002 floods, called on city councillors, Prague’s
mayor, the mayors of individual city districts and other decision-makers to:
maintain and expand rail transit (urban rail
service like the German S-Bahn run by Czech Railways), shorten intervals
between commuter trains, keep and expand separate bus lanes even after the
re-opening of the metro, put a halt to “motorway” construction inside the
motorway ring and shift the billions to be invested into metro repairs instead,
change priorities for parking in the centre, lower the speed limit on the magistrala
trunk road to 50 km/h and turn it into an urban boulevard, and begin
construction of a dense network of cyclepaths with a budget of at least
1% of transport expenditures. The petition was signed by almost 10,000
citizens. The fact that Prague’s councillors did not even allow the petition
committee representatives to speak at the council session where the petition was to be discussed is sad
proof of how little attention decision-makers paid to
the petition.