The Approach from the D8 Narrows to One Lane. TSK Resurfaces 4.3 Kilometres of Cínovecká to 10 December

Technická správa komunikací hl. m. Prahy is replacing the carriageway surface on 4.3 kilometres of Cínovecká, the four-lane feeder that takes traffic off the D8 motorway and carries it towards Holešovice and the Blanka tunnel complex. The work runs on the inbound carriageway from Friday 23 October to 10 December, in the section bounded by the Mratínský stream at its northern end and Rochlická street at its southern one. Zdopravy.cz reported the plan on 14 October.

The consequence is stated plainly by the road authority: with the approach to the centre from the D8 reduced to a single lane, queues are expected at peak, with delays of 10 to 30 minutes.

Two jobs on one corridor

The dates matter because of what is already under way a short distance down the same chain of roads. The ramps of the grade-separated interchange where Cínovecká meets Kbelská are being rebuilt at the same time; those works began on Monday 12 October and run to the end of November. TSK says the schedule and the planned traffic measures for the two are closely coordinated.

The aim is to preserve maximum traffic flow in the north-eastern sector of the metropolis.

— Technická správa komunikací hl. m. Prahy, to Zdopravy.cz (translated from the Czech)

The Kbelská works are the third and final stage of a reconstruction that matters more than a street repair normally would. Zdopravy.cz reports that all transit traffic between the D1, D11, D10 and D8 motorways runs along Kbelská, because the street stands in for the Pražský okruh. The first two stages, over the summer, replaced the whole carriageway in a record 43 days, and the fears of gridlock that preceded them did not materialise — Zdopravy attributes that to the restriction being shortened and to careful coordination.

Eurovia CZ, of the VINCI Construction group, is doing the work in consortium with Strabag SIS and Porr. Because some third-stage items were completed alongside the summer work, Eurovia says the final phase can be cut from the planned 60 days to 40, with Kbelská entirely finished by 30 November.

Part of the work will also include repairing damaged drainage gullies and manholes and adjusting the height of covers and other utility network elements.

— Iveta Štočková, spokeswoman for Eurovia CZ, to Zdopravy.cz (translated from the Czech)

From 12 to 23 October only the off-ramp into Veselská is closed, with Kbelská narrowed to one lane there and the other slip roads unaffected. From 24 October to the end of November the regime changes again — and the specific traffic measures for that period have not been approved. Zdopravy.cz reports that TSK will announce them during construction.

That is the part to watch. Cínovecká narrows on 23 October, the day before Kbelská moves into a phase whose traffic measures do not yet exist on paper.

What is being laid

On Cínovecká the job is a replacement of the asphalt layers to a total thickness of about 120 mm, together with repairs to damaged street gullies including new grates, repairs to crash barriers, kerbs levelled and made up, and road markings renewed afterwards.

One inbound lane from Cínovecká will be fed into Kbelská towards Hloubětín, and a second taken across to the opposite side of Liberecká, returning to the standard Liberecká alignment at Rochlická. The Vysočanská and Rochlická junction stays passable inbound but cannot be reached from Cínovecká or Liberecká. The slip road between Kostelecká and Cínovecká inbound closes completely, with drivers directed to Ďáblická or the route through Tupolevova and Prosecká.

To ensure traffic flow, a non-stop emergency recovery service will be available on site, which in the event of an accident or breakdown will tow the immobilised vehicle out of the works free of charge.

— Technická správa komunikací hl. m. Prahy, to Zdopravy.cz (translated from the Czech)

Why resurfacing here is a planning story

Both of these are maintenance, and neither changes what gets built anywhere. What makes the pair worth recording is where they are. Kbelská carries motorway transit that a finished Pražský okruh would take instead, and Cínovecká is the link in the same chain that brings the D8 into the city. Maintaining a substitute route means constraining it, and there is no second substitute to divert onto — which is why the management of these two jobs comes down to sequencing, temporary signage and a free tow truck rather than an alternative road.

Read together, the two announcements are less a pair of resurfacing notices than one seven-week test of how much traffic the northern entry carries on half its lanes. Note the sourcing: both accounts come from Zdopravy.cz, reporting TSK and Eurovia. Neither TSK's own traffic modelling for the overlap nor the approved measures for the period after 24 October has been published.