Ground Broken at Strahov for the Seventh New Tram Line Started This Term

The foundation stone of the Malovanka – Strahov tram line was laid on 5 October at the site of the future shared turning loop for trams, buses and trolleybuses by the Strahov stadium. DPP now expects trial running with passengers in the middle of 2028. We reported the CZK 824 million construction contract when DPP signed it in August; this is the point at which the contractor takes the ground.

The date is the first thing worth holding onto. Zdopravy.cz reports that DPP originally meant to start work this spring and open the line in autumn 2027, and that complications in the tender pushed the programme back. The building permit has been in hand since autumn 2024. Jan Šurovský, DPP's technical director for surface transport, put the remaining work at one and a half building seasons; Zdopravy puts it at eighteen months from handover of the site. Either way the slip is about a year, and it was procurement, not construction, that caused it. DPP had to wait for the competition authority ÚOHS, which examined the tender on a complaint by T4 Building and found no fault.

What 1.3 kilometres buys

The double-track line begins at the Bělohorská–Vaníčkova junction, where a new track crossing goes in, and runs the full length of Vaníčkova — a climb DPP's figures put at 55 per mille — to the existing bus turning circle at the Vaníčkova–Turistická junction.

Malovanka is rebuilt rather than merely connected. A short section of Bělohorská as far as the Myslbekova junction is reconstructed, and the present Malovanka tram stops are moved into that stretch between the Vaníčkova and Myslbekova junctions so that every service passing the point, in every direction, can be handled there. The original stops are abolished.

Vaníčkova is widened to three lanes. Uphill towards the stadium, cars will drive on the right-hand tram lane; downhill, trams and cars each get their own separated lane. Past the stadium the line runs on its own formation along both sides of the existing carriageway, then cuts diagonally across part of the piazzetta by the Strahov tunnel's ventilation structure into the new loop, which has both a through track and a passing track. The loop is made by rebuilding the Stadion Strahov bus turning circle and the adjacent part of the piazzetta.

Three pairs of stops: Malovanka, shared with the existing line to Bílá Hora; Koleje Strahov, in Vaníčkova between the halls of residence and the stadium, roughly where the bus stops of that name are now; and Strahov in the new loop, which will handle every surface service. DPP notes that Strahov was the working name Stadion Strahov until now — Zdopravy still calls both the stop and the loop Stadion Strahov, and Expats.cz uses Strahov.

The two accounts also differ on who is building it. DPP names the consortium Společnost TT Malovanka as Elektrizace železnic Praha, FIRESTA–Fišer, rekonstrukce, stavby and PEDASTA dopravní stavby, and the consortium's own quote in DPP's release names the same three; Zdopravy lists only the first two.

The argument is about Vítězné náměstí

The line's purpose, in every account, is to take buses off something else. Opening it lets trams replace the buses that run from Strahov to Dejvická metro station, which thins traffic through the congested Vítězné náměstí. Expats.cz reports that a combined tram interval of around four minutes is under consideration, and that service could be tuned to the university calendar.

The Strahov area is today a place with an enormous concentration of students, but its transport provision still rests on buses and the funicular. ČVUT has big plans for the whole area and it faces fundamental development. It is already the seventh new tram line whose construction we have started in this term of office, and we will begin another this very week.

— Jaromír Beránek, first deputy mayor of Prague for transport

Jakub Stárek, the mayor of Praha 6, called the line a precondition for the transformation of Vítězné náměstí, because the connected change to bus services can gradually reduce the buses crossing it. Lukáš Herold, the mayor of Praha 5, welcomed something smaller and more concrete: the new loop will include a charging station for trolleybus line 53 between Karlovo náměstí and Strahov.

That is the pattern in Šurovský's account too. The works are coordinated with the electrification of bus line 176, whose overhead can now be run into the new loop along with new trolleybus layover space, with the planned electrification of line 191, and with Pražská vodohospodářská společnost, whose advance works in Vaníčkova DPP's contractor will follow. Traffic management measures and permits are still being arranged. Expats.cz reports that tram service towards Bílá Hora will have to be interrupted when the new tracks are tied in at Malovanka, and that parts of Vaníčkova will close.

The project is co-financed from EU funds; Zdopravy specifies the Transport Programme 2021–2027, covering up to 85 percent of eligible expenditure. Zdopravy also lists what else is open at once: the last prepared line, Libuš – Nové Dvory, starts on Wednesday, trams are near returning to Wenceslas Square, and Počernická in Malešice and Olšanská – Habrová are both under way.