Plzeňská Reopens Before Saturday Rush — and TSK Abandons the Concrete Kerbs Prague 5 Objected To

The reconstruction of Plzeňská between Mozartova and Pod Kotlářkou ends this weekend, and the street returns to full use before Saturday's morning traffic. Prague 5 announced the schedule on 28 August: temporary traffic measures start coming out from about 21:00 on Friday, finishing work on markings and signage runs through the night, and the street is open without restriction by 4:30 on Saturday 29 August.

The more durable part of the story is not the reopening. It is what the district stopped from being built in the last week of the job.

What was rebuilt

The works ran from February, with three organisations sharing the site: Technická správa komunikací hl. m. Prahy, Pražská vodohospodářská společnost and Pražská plynárenská Distribuce. The district describes it as the second stage of the investment, covering complete renewal of worn-out utility networks beneath the carriageway and continuous resurfacing of the road in the direction out of the centre.

Below ground, that meant replacing life-expired water and gas mains. Above it, new asphalt layers, kerbs levelled, street gullies rebuilt to drain the carriageway reliably, and traffic signage renewed. Prague 5 says the scheme disrupted residents and drivers across two building seasons.

Buses return to their permanent routes before the first morning departures on Saturday. Traffic signal equipment along the section is reset during the day.

The kerbs the district refused

TSK had intended to install plastic kerbs filled with concrete on the corners of five junctions where Plzeňská meets Na Čečelice, U Paliárky, Mahenova, U Tyrše and U Demartinky. Prague 5's councillors took the question up on the Monday of the closing week and concluded that the elements were user-unfriendly, and that they would undercut the whole effect of a reconstruction that had disrupted the district for two seasons.

TSK dropped them. The mayor of Prague 5, Lukáš Herold (ODS), framed it as a response to his own intervention:

My thanks that TSK responded promptly to my prompting to remove the non-structural elements intruding into the carriageway.

— Lukáš Herold, Mayor of Prague 5 (translated from the Czech)

Herold also welcomed the deadline being met and thanked residents for their patience with the restrictions.

What is still open

The layout that reopens on Saturday is not necessarily the final one. Herold said the traffic design may yet change in connection with a planned shared cycle route on the pavement along Vrchlického, beside the Smíchov cemetery:

The final form of the traffic solution may still change in connection with the planned mixed cycle route on the pavement in Vrchlického along the Smíchov cemetery.

— Lukáš Herold, Mayor of Prague 5 (translated from the Czech)

The district's account does not say when that route would be built, what it would cost, or whether it would return to the junction corners TSK has just conceded.

Why it is worth recording

A road reopening on schedule is a service announcement. What makes this one worth keeping is the climbdown attached to it: a city organisation had a detail designed, approved and about to be installed, and a district council reversed it in the final week by objecting that it made the street worse to use.

Note the source. This is Prague 5's own account of a dispute Prague 5 won, and TSK's reasoning for the kerbs — what they were meant to do at those five corners — does not appear in it. Whether the corners work better without them is a question the street will answer over the autumn, and it is worth returning to once the Vrchlického cycle route has a date.