Emanuel Šíp’s commentary: A high-speed road to chaos
With the rejection of the Chamber of Commerce’s proposal, Prague Airport would also lose much of its importance, writes Šíp.
The chairman of the Transport Section of the Czech Chamber of Commerce, Emanuel Šíp, comments on the preparation of high-speed lines in the Czech Republic, especially the Prague junction, the connection of Václav Havel Airport and the road to Germany. “Anyone who follows developments in airport train transport in Europe and in the world would certainly understand why the Bustehrad Railway, as a normal stop train terminated at an isolated city station and based on mixing passengers from the airport with a daily city frequency, does not bring these passengers on a larger scale. “Writes Šíp.
The writer of this article has always thought that the Czechia deserves to gradually build a quality and functional network of high-speed trains. It will increase the importance of the country and its metropolis in the European context, connect large areas of regions and compensate for huge investment costs by serving ten and a long time to serve the domestic and foreign public. However, there are growing doubts as to whether this is even possible in the current state of affairs. The last and very fundamental impulse for such doubts was given on November 29, 2021 by the announcement of the public contract of the Railway Administration for the processing of documentation for the zoning decision of the 4 VRT Prague-Balabenka Expressway – Lovosice Congress with an expected value of unusually high 230 million crowns.
The basis of this contract is to become the traditional route of VRT Prague – Dresden through the Prague junction Balabenka and north around Odolena Voda, which was designed in 2003 by the company IKP. From the very beginning, the Czech Chamber of Commerce (HK ČR) drew attention to the problems of this solution, which is one of the reasons why it came up with an initiative to change it in 2016 based on the requirements of the business community.
However, the proposal of the HK CR has met with hostility from the officials of the Railway Administration from the very beginning. When the feasibility study (SP) of the route of the new railway connection Prague – Dresden was commissioned, the proposal of the HK CR was not included in its variant, if the authors of the study themselves proposed it. He said “he didn’t want to” (which is what he was talking about here). When the incumbent Prime Minister Andrej Babiš ordered to check the route proposed by the HK CR territorial technical study and compare it with the original proposal, Administration officials accepted (or forced) a distortion of the investment cost calculation of the comparative variant by an incredible 70 billion crowns by not including sections that they would necessarily have to be built in the case of non-implementation of the HK ČR proposal, and this should exclude the HK ČR proposal from the game as too expensive (which is what here). And now the sunk costs for the above-mentioned contract are probably to serve as a justification why the HK ČR proposal is not possible. This is despite the fact that the proposal serves as the basis for one of the main scenarios being developed by the Prague Railway Junction SP with its planned completion in 2023. It is intended to compare the benefits and costs of both fundamental alternatives. The announcement of the contract has the right timing: the old government is leaving and the new minister does not yet have the power to intervene.
The proposal of the HK CR, which was originally intended primarily to connect Václav Havel Airport on the Prague-Dresden VRT route, and thus to the VRT network, has since been finalized into a comprehensive solution with a number of inseparable advantages (complete documentation here). In addition to connecting the airport, it ensures the most reliable passage of future high-speed trains (VRV) through the underground of the Prague junction without any contact with interfering trains. It removes the isolation of Prague’s Masaryk Railway Station, connects with the main railway station and makes it a direct part of the high-speed station. Prospectively, it creates a transfer hub at the airport at VRT for a substantial part of the west of the Central Bohemian Region, in contrast to the Nehvizd project operated by a priority railway. In general, the benefits that a traditional solution lacks. It is no wonder that the proposal of the HK CR is the subject of so many obstacles.
The Prague railway junction has been neglected by the Railway Administration and its predecessors for many decades, and its capacity is on the verge of exhaustion. It was supposed to be extended during the corridor period, but it did not happen: the only challenge was the so-called New Connection, which, however, was already very busy when it opened. And now, in addition to VRV, the Balabenka and the southern tunnel of the New Connection, in addition to the extended train service from Ústí nad Labem, Mladá Boleslav and Hradec Králové, should accept new suburban trains from Brandýs nad Labem and Veleň – Odolena Voda. there can only be unimaginable chaos and considerable delays.
And we leave aside a number of other crisis points, enriched in places with freight transport on the Balabenka loop – the southern tunnel of the New Connection – Prague. n. with their heads – Vinohrady tunnels – Prague-Vršovice and unravel near Hostivař, along which VRV Berlin – Vienna and others are to move. The so-called The new connection 2 (suburban trains in the underground) is, by the way, out of sight and was probably burdened by a lot of technical, transport and urban problems. And it doesn’t matter that the bad consequences of the decision will manifest themselves decades later. The thoughts of “who knows what will happen at that time and we will be elsewhere” type have no place here, the decisive moment is now.
The connection of Václav Havel Airport to VRT Prague – Dresden is not a problem for the railways, but a great opportunity. Even if the number of passengers at the airport stagnated at the level of 2019 for many years, it would still be possible to get on the rail with a very sober estimate of 17,000 air passengers on average per day who would probably use car transport as before if the airport is not connected to VRT. Anyone who develops airport train transport in Europe and around the world would certainly understand why the Bustehrad Railway, as a normal stop terminated at an isolated city station and based on mixing passengers from the airport with a daily city frequency, does not accept participants on a larger scale. It will be of benefit only to those of them who have enjoyed the city bus number 119 with pleasure so far.
With the rejection of the HK CR’s proposal, Prague Airport would also lose much of its importance. It will not become an interesting European hub with its city, and the long-haul airlines that probably remain will probably come. It will also not be possible to replace any of the short lines by train, as envisaged in the European concept; on the contrary, they will be needed so that Czech air passengers can access long-haul routes at various European airports. This will certainly not bother the railway patriots in the slightest, but it should bother the political representation.
Officials are likely to argue that changing the traditional Prague-Dresden VRT routing would be delayed and in a hurry. The course of the five-year-old martyria described above with the proposal of the HK CR is its refutation with absolute certainty. If our proposal had been included as an alternative to the SPT Prague-Dresden a few years ago, we would have nothing to discuss now. After all, we are not at the sprinter race and the course of the route to Germany is unresolved. The goal should be to implement a solution that will work reliably for dozens of money in the future. The fact that in this case about 230 million crowns can be thrown out the window, all risks do not end. In the end, it may be tens, maybe hundreds of billions of crowns for non-functional projects. It is also worth mentioning that in the case of the connection of Prague Airport by the Buštěhrad Railway, it has been in a hurry for almost thirty years.
The role of the Railway Administration is not only to build and repair lines, manage traffic on them and serve hauliers, although even here it is possible to have a number of critical remarks. It is also a matter of continuously monitoring and evaluating European and world trends so that the lines that are built correspond to the time of their commissioning, and not to the ancient past. That this is not happening is far from the fault of the Railway Administration, the strategy of the Ministry of Transport has also failed somewhat here. And it’s not so much in specific people as in the Administration system. It is a heavily centralized structure with a lack of public control, which gives too much room for clerical will, rigidity and convenience. This is also in line with the enormous challenges of the Green Agreement. The writer experiences a déjà vu that he did not want: he gets to know the old state organization of Czech Railways. And even a more imaginative marketing campaign won’t do that.
The problem of the recent decision was eliminated by the fact that the contract was canceled or its implementation postponed until after the evaluation of the results of the feasibility study of the Prague railway junction in 2023.
The new Minister of Transport is taking on an unenviable role. Its task is to deal with the severe effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the transport sector, to loosen the long-blocked construction of motorway sections, to revive neglected water transport and to replace the resources depleted by the previous expansion of mandatory state expenditures. And now he should deal with the problems of the outdated strategy at the Railway Administration. In any case, he should listen to informal critical voices about the emerging VRT network (officially few people allow themselves, there are other contracts) and gain their own overview of European trends in high-speed and airport rail transport. Otherwise, he will be captured by comfortable and godly officials and, like his predecessors, will go a long way to a dysfunctional and unattractive system for alleged VRTs. They will be more uncontrollable or ridiculed, but it may happen that a torso remains when a future government stops implementing the Quick Connections due to a malfunctioning program. It is not too late to change in the right direction. If you continue to ride in the old dormitories, it will be an impulse for the writers of this article to leave the topic of VRT in the Czech Republic aside and to focus on things that make sense instead.
Emanuel Šíp
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