Žižkov's Temporary Wide Tram Stops Become Permanent — and Lose a Little Width

The tram stops at Biskupcova on Jana Želivského were one of Prague's more visible experiments in taking road space for passengers without waiting for a building permit. In 2023 Dopravní podnik hlavního města Prahy widened both platforms with a modular kit — known in the trade as lego — laid loose on the carriageway, at the cost of a traffic lane on each side of the street. Three years later the kit is coming up. The stops are being rebuilt as permanent structures during the track renewal that started on Sunday, and they will come back slightly narrower than the temporary version, Zdopravy.cz reported on 15 October.

The numbers

The original islands were 1.8 metres wide in both directions. The 2023 extension took them to 3.15 metres towards the centre and 3.45 metres away from it. The permanent platforms will be 3.1 metres towards the centre and 2.9 metres away from it, according to Ondřej Rut, deputy mayor of Praha 3. The busier island, into town, loses 5 centimetres; the one from the centre loses 55.

Both remain far wider than what stood there before 2023. That is also why DPP's own notice of the closure, which we reported on 10 October, could describe the Biskupcova platforms as being enlarged in both directions: measured against the original kerbs, they are. Measured against what passengers have been standing on since 2023, one of them shrinks.

Why they shrink

The widening had a side effect. With the extension in place, the bus stop moved into the shared tram stop, and buses then struggled to pass oncoming buses in the narrow space between the platforms. In 2023 that could not be fixed, Rut explained, because the tracks stayed where they were; trimming the platforms for the buses' sake would have left a 30-centimetre gap between the kerb and the tram door.

The track renewal changes that. The two tracks are being moved 60 centimetres further apart, giving buses room to pass. The building permit also allows the platforms to be founded as a permanent structure anchored into the ground rather than a kit resting on the road surface, which is what costs the width.

"That is the reason the new islands have to be a little narrower."

— Ondřej Rut, deputy mayor of Praha 3

The argument about waste

Zdopravy.cz reports that the digging-up of stops after only three years drew the attention of tabloid media, which questioned the 2023 widening itself and criticised what they presented as poor coordination of the works. Rut's answer is that DPP widened the stops in response to long-standing requests from Praha 3, and that the temporary, cheap version was what made it possible to avoid a lengthy permitting process. In his view the loss of a lane for cars was not as catastrophic as many had predicted at the time.

It was always meant to be temporary. When the extension opened in 2023, Zdeněk Hřib, then deputy mayor of Prague, told Zdopravy.cz it was a fix the city's companies could put in within less than two weeks, and that the platforms would get their final form during a reconstruction of the Jana Želivského line planned "in the medium term". The medium term turned out to be three years.

Daniel Šabík, DPP's head of communications, says the railings, paving and plastic kerbs will all be reused at other stops being widened temporarily ahead of a permanent rebuild — and that the Biskupcova kit itself was recycled from earlier temporary stops elsewhere in the city.

"It would have been wasteful if we had already made a permanent widening of the platforms in 2023 without changing the track spacing at Biskupcova and without modernising the line in Jana Želivského."

— Daniel Šabík, DPP

He adds that the Jana Želivského renewal was timed to coincide with construction of the new Olšanská–Habrová line towards Jarov, to keep tram closures in the area to a minimum.

What it shows

Read plainly, this is a tactical intervention doing what tactical interventions are supposed to do: test a change cheaply, live with it, and fix the dimensions when the permanent works come round. The passengers keep most of the space they were given, and what the trial taught — that buses need room to pass — is built into the track geometry. The price is a few centimetres on one side and 55 on the other. Zdopravy.cz adds that the city expects a new Jarovská třída, serving the development on the former Žižkov freight yard, to carry traffic out towards the Městský okruh.