Prague Starts Building the Olšanská–Habrová Tram — and Its First Single-Track Section Since 1983

Dopravní podnik hl. m. Prahy held the ceremonial start of the Olšanská–Habrová tramway on 31 August, three days after the work itself began. On Saturday 29 August the contractors started rebuilding the first part of the track junction at Olšanská and Jana Želivského, where the new line will branch off the existing network.

The line is 1.9 kilometres long with six stops and a stub-end terminus at Jarov. It is costed at CZK 599.2 million excluding VAT, co-funded by the European Union through the Transport Programme 2021–2027, and is being built by a consortium of FIRESTA – rekonstrukce, stavby; PEDASTA – dopravní stavby; and N+N – Konstrukce a dopravní stavby Litoměřice. DPP gives the build twelve months and expects services to start at the end of August 2027, with a direct tram journey to the centre of about 15 minutes.

The track arrives before the district does

For the first 450 metres past the junction, the tramway runs north of the retained freight-yard building along the centre line of what will become the main street of the new Nákladové nádraží Žižkov quarter, with two stops on it — Nákladové nádraží Žižkov and Bernasova. The street does not exist yet. Housing is going up to the north and more starts within the next twelve months.

Jaromír Beránek, first deputy mayor for transport, framed the sequencing as the point of the project:

Bringing a high-capacity rail connection into a newly emerging quarter I consider an absolute necessity. Such a large part of the new city must be served above all by good public transport. It is therefore excellent news that we will manage to build the line in advance, at a moment when only a smaller part of the planned development stands on the former brownfield.

— Jaromír Beránek, first deputy mayor of Prague for transport

The street profile was drawn by architects, and 68 honey locusts (Gleditsia triacanthos 'Shademaster') go in as two rows alongside the track; a third avenue comes with the neighbouring developer's scheme. Root spaces get engineered substrates with biochar, and rainwater from the carriageway, footways and stops is directed to the roots. Surplus goes into two retention basins of 25 and 40 cubic metres and is used to water the grassed track.

Where the money went into restraint

Beyond Bernasova the double track passes under the K Červenému dvoru bridge, which TSK is replacing in a parallel, coordinated investment. Třebešín stop follows, serving existing housing that currently depends on buses, and a new traction substation, Červený dvůr, goes up nearby on Na Viktorce, partly set into the slope. From Třebešín the line runs on the old railway alignment to Vackov, near the supermarket, where the Y-516 footbridge over the former railway comes down and is replaced by a level crossing for pedestrians and new footways. Along the railway section the track is covered with sedum strips, chosen for lower maintenance and drought tolerance.

About 100 metres past Vackov the two tracks merge into one, used in both directions for roughly 600 metres to Habrová — a single island platform on the northern side — and on to the Jarov terminus by Osiková, a two-track stub with an island platform and a new green-roofed staff facility.

That is not a cost saving for its own sake. The city's plan puts the future Jarovská třída and the City Ring Road through the same corridor, and DPP says the timing of that construction is not known but will certainly force larger changes. Building single track there is the cheapest possible way to occupy the corridor until then; when the Jarovská třída is built, the section becomes double track with a loop able to turn every tram type.

The first one in forty-three years

Jan Šurovský, DPP board vice-chair and technical director for surface transport, called the conversion unusual and singled out the single-track operation, which will be electronically secured — cutting the power if two trams enter head-on.

No single-track section has been operated in regular service in Prague since 1983, when the single track in Radlice disappeared.

— Jan Šurovský, technical director – Surface, DPP

Prague 3's mayor Michal Vronský welcomed the investment and said the district would work with the city and DPP to keep disruption down and information timely. Petr Hlaváček, deputy mayor for spatial development, tied it to the Metropolitan Plan, arguing that large brownfields should be developed as real neighbourhoods rather than as isolated projects.

This year's work is mostly groundworks: earthworks at the freight yard, utility diversions, new storm drainage and the retention basins, then the track bed, feeder cables, catenary poles and, last, the trees.