Another dispute in the coalition: Should Prague buy public transport stops? Or leave them to private individuals?
While Pirates, led by Mayor Zdeněk Hřib and Prague, want the capital to buy public transport stops for less than half a billion crowns, according to Mayor Petr Hlubuček (STAN), it would be better and more advantageous for the metropolis to end the problematic agreement of In 1994, the shelters were run by a private individual.
“It would be best for me that Prague did not have to give any money for the construction of those shelters, so that it was free, just someone took care of it and still paid us perfectly. What more could Prague want? ”Said the environmental councilor at a meeting with journalists on Tuesday. Hlubuček added that the new contract should be set for the city rather than the current one.
2/2 Guarding a well-written and advantageous contract with Prague for the concessionaire is less risky than embarking on the construction of stops, their administration and trading in advertising.
– Petr Hlubucek (@p_hlubucek) February 5, 2020
The day before, at a regular meeting of the Hlubuček City Council, he and his colleague Hana Kordová Marvanová (STAN) requested a postponement of the decision on further action. This is the second time this has happened and who knows if this point will reach the next program on Monday.
Prague is thus still hesitant whether to announce a public tender for the operator or to buy urban furniture itself. Mayor Hřib promotes the second option also because he does not want the capital to be blackmailed by a supplier company. Hlubuček’s idea is also supported by the chairman of the Prague ODS, opposition representative and member of the furniture commission Tomáš Portlík.
There is a risk that Praguers will get wet
In any case, the municipality’s politicians are under fire during the offer of indecision. At the beginning of January, JCDecaux, which owns public transport shelters on the basis of the aforementioned old contract and can place advertising there, offered to transfer 300 non-advertising new stops (in a design chosen by Prague itself on the basis of a competition) to the capital. However, if a tender is not announced, there is a risk that passengers will get wet while waiting for the tram or bus – the French company is preparing to dismantle its shelters so that they disappear from the streets of Prague by the end of June next year, when the contract expires. Prague, on the other hand, is threatening a lawsuit.
Last week, it came up with a similar offer from the international company Clear Channel Outdoor, which does not yet operate on the domestic market. It is said that it would build 930 new shelters for Prague residents at public transport stops. “In the event of the announcement of the concession procedure, we are willing to accommodate the city and undertake to build a completely new furniture at our own expense if successful in the final procedure and transfer it to the city property free of charge immediately after its completion,” the iDNES.cz news portal quoted the director for development and innovation by Mats Lundquist.
BigBoard, the number one in the domestic advertising market, is also interested in participating in the competition, as is euroAWk. “We want fair competition and a duel of companies that understand the issue,” said Pavel Slabý, CEO of JCDecaux.
Impractical and too expensive baskets
However, the company is stepping up the pressure. JCDecaux conducted a study according to which high-quality urban furniture is critical in 25 city districts of Prague. “This concerns 918 thousand people in this city, who cannot count on a well-kept and clean shelter, bench, regularly emptied basket made of quality material or a protective railing in their place of residence, if necessary from the point of view of safety,” says Václav Kuthan, JCDecaux’s Chief Operating Officer. .
This statement is partly confirmed by the mayor’s deputy, Hlubuček, who does not like the planned uniform form of urban furniture. According to him, the design of stops does not sufficiently prevent vandalism and the size of the stops is not the same, which could complicate the exchange.
The Prague councilor added that the authors did not address the practical side of the matter for baskets. Employees of the municipal company Pražské služby, which Hlubuček is in charge of, take it three times longer to empty a new bin than is currently the case. “In addition, it is too expensive at a price of 12,000 crowns,” Hlubuček remarked.
It was the baskets that attracted the attention of the international expert jury at the Red Dot Design competition. Jan Chabr, the councilor for the property, accepted the award at the time, whose Prague TOP 09 stated on the Facebook page at the end of January: “