The double increase in the price of P + R car parks goes against their point
Unlike many of my colleagues from the ranks of motoring journalists, I have never been one of those people who have to drive to the center of Prague. On the contrary. In the more fifteen years that I have been going to Prague for work, I have preferred the combination of leaving a car on the edge and another trip by metro, which I consider to be one of the best in the world in Prague.
It turned out better in terms of time and money, and one could read a book or a magazine. In addition, I had, and still have, a fairly legitimate feeling that riding a “sock” is much less harmful to the environment. Of course, I’m not a dogmatist, and when I stayed in the center for an cultural event in the evening or at night, I preferred to complete the whole trip by car and I really enjoyed driving in depopulated night Prague.
In August this year, the TSK (Technical Administration of Roads of the Capital City of Prague) quietly increased the price of parking fees in parking lots on the outskirts of Prague. The increase was not cosmetic, but quite brutal. The basic daily rate was supplemented from the original 20 crowns to 50 crowns at most sites and in two selected ones (Ládví and Kongresové centrum) even to 100 crowns. Which is 150 and 400 percent more, respectively.
TSK Prague argued that the increase was due to the fact that in the original covid year it earned less money because people traveled less for work and entertainment. This is certainly true, but it is not, or should not be, a reason for such a brutal increase in price. If the long-term concept of the representatives of the capital is the smallest possible number of cars in the center, then with the monopoly position of P + R parking lots, there should be no increase in prices at all. They should be cheap, let people be motivated to get to the center by subway, whose station is near the parking lot.
Expensive and often undersized
If you come to Prague twice a year, it probably doesn’t matter if you pay twenty or fifty crowns for the all-day parking fee. This is a burning problem for people who commute to Prague every day – as well as the author of this commentary. They will increase their monthly costs from some 440 to equal 1,100 crowns. And that’s quite familiar, and at the same time it can be a motivation to try to park somewhere for free or go straight to work by car. Both then go against the meaning of parking lots.
However, TSK knew very well that a significant increase in the price would provide them with full parking lots – they park in Letňany every day and the local asphalt plot for 679 cars is usually mostly full. Just like before the rise in price.
The problem that has been going on for decades is that P + R car parks in Prague are generally brutally undersized. For example, Nové Butovice, Zličín and until recently also Černý most, where on weekdays both small car parks were hopelessly full (a three-storey parking house with a capacity of 880 cars is finally opening here).
The fact that, at the same time as the price of parking lots connected to public transport, paper tickets became more expensive (for 30 minutes from 24 to 30 CZK and 90 minutes to 32 to 40 crowns) seems like a failed joke to a pirate association that runs the capital. But let’s end at least a little positively: after many years, the parking lot on the already mentioned Black Bridge has finally expanded.