The former head of the transport company Ďuriš founds the Prague movement without chaos and is heading for politics Politics News
Jaroslav Ďuriš worked in a Prague transport company for thirty years. He started in operational positions, after the revolution he got into middle management and since 2002 he has headed the personnel department. He later worked as the director of the České Budějovice transport company in order to return to the Transport Company of the Capital City of Prague after two years, in the role of general director and chairman of the board of directors, who worked for almost three years. Jaroslav Ďuriš is not satisfied with traffic management in Prague, so he founds a new political entity called Prague without Chaos.
“… in the current situation, when energy, food are rising and the crisis is starting to hit us, it is not a good idea to raise the price of public transport fares”
How do you think the Prague transport company works today?
I would just say superlatives there, there are heartthrobs. A few years ago, the Prague transport company was evaluated as the fourth best in the world. But it is important to note that the higher the lead, the weaker it is. There is an education of my own managers in the middle and senior management, which I helped to implement. In higher positions, it is more complicated and we could stop right at the position of CEO, where a phenomenon that we also perceive in politics or, for example, in football, begins. Everyone thinks they understand, but it’s not.
You say yourself that the transport company is at the forefront in terms of quality for passengers. So what’s wrong with that when it works?
Its economy, which no one is dealing with today, is badly bad. If we make the continuity of the last ten years, the ten demonstrable losses are huge.
How to change it?
There are only two options. Either, as a municipality, I will set up my own transport company to manage it for me. Or I will compete as a public contract and a service provided by a private contractor. The current municipality does this because it has its own transport company, which is to set up transport in Prague under optimal conditions for the city and for the inhabitants, but because ROPID is here as the organizer of public transport, it announces a public tender, which means that the city creates competition to its own transport company. That does not make sense. By the logic of the matter, private operators only apply for these tenders, which are lucrative for them, ie only for profitable routes. But the transport company must procure even those that are not present. Moreover, this conduct is contrary to European legislation.
Is the fare in Prague’s public transport right now?
When the fare dropped, I was against it. I tried to defend as much as possible for the transport company at the time when I was working there as the chairman of the board. On the other hand, I think that in the current situation, when energy, food and crises are becoming more expensive, it is not a good idea to increase the price of public transport fares.
Will the city now bear energy prices so passengers don’t have to pay on tickets?
The city will unuse. Although these are very high energy costs, they are closely related to another topic. At Pražská plynárenská, exactly what we talked about in connection with the transport company applies. Pražská plynárenská is a city company. As long as he was the chairman of the board of Pavel Janeček, the company was in profit, because as an experienced manager he considered the tendency of the market and evaluated well, for example, the possibilities of buying gas for the supply. When Pavel Janeček left and a pirate clique arrived, after a year, the Prague Gas Company minus six billion crowns. Despite all aspects of the market, this is an incredibly fatal failure of Pražská plynárenská’s managers.
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“The basis is not to dig a detour when repairing one road, which is quite common here”
Let’s go straight back to traffic. How do you think the public perceives traffic in Prague?
Catastrophically. These things need to be perceived at a time when the intensity of individual car traffic, but also urban traffic, is changing. Other transport systems are involved, some of which do not intersect, such as cable car systems or waterways, but some intersect, such as shared cars, bicycles or scooters, which severely worsens traffic in Prague. The worst, in my opinion, is that the last management of the city, which was interested in the strategic and systematic development of transport in Prague, ended in 2010. Then the ODS was shut down and TOP 09 and new directions began.
I have the impression that even today there are a lot of transport projects that are being worked on, at random metro D, metro O, Dvorecký most, the footbridge between Karlín and Holešovice and especially the repairs of the Barrandov bridge.
Even the ODS and social democracy governments, which were here until 2010, postponed bridge repairs. The situation was bad, but not catastrophic. We got to the point where the repair of the Barrandov Bridge could not be postponed for another day. The fact that it is being repaired the most now is not due to the current city management. As for the Dvorecký Bridge, it may be a bit of reasonable traffic, but it certainly won’t solve it in any fundamental way. Traffic is happening, there are more and more cars in companies in families and they park somewhere. The solution is mainly parking houses and the development of P + R car parks.
The city administration is in a position to repair the road because no one has done it in the past. The opposition does not like the fact that Prague is eternally dug up. Is there a compromise?
The main problem is the coordination of parallel repairs. The basis is not to dig a detour when repairing one road, which is quite common here. Prague is so busy that a small thing is enough for the whole city to collapse.
Some Prague politicians have a clear opinion that the city should belong to the people, not the cars. How do you perceive it?
Unfortunately, this is the case, the city management strongly prioritizes bicycle transport over automobile transport. We have to find a common solution, we can’t have a city either just for cars or just for cyclists. If you can build a bike path where it does not intersect with car traffic, this is the best option. But these things do not work in the historical center of Prague.
Isn’t the solution to motivate people to use public transport more?
Prague’s public transport would certainly carry more passengers. It is on the edge at peak times, but there are not many underground railways in the world where the interval is close to ninety seconds, for example, in Germany not a single subway runs so often. There is definitely some motivation, but the price of the ticket is probably no longer there, because if a passenger has a one-year ticket for ten crowns a day, it can’t be cheaper.
Could people from cars to public transport get restrictions on car traffic in the city center?
In general, I would say that it is possible. The parameters could be set, but it must give politicians the courage to do so.
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“Petr Hlubuček was one of the members of the transport company’s supervisory board who, together with Jaroslav Faltýnek and Květoslav Hlína, prepared my appeal”
How do you deal with the current case, where the police accused eleven people of corruption in a transport company?
I have to admit, I wasn’t surprised. In the years 2013 to 2016, when the transport company was under my leadership, we significantly reduced the recovery of its management. One of the important steps was to cut off the company from the influence of various lobbyists as associated inefficient costs. At the same time, we all managed to catch up with major infrastructure transport structures and solve strategic plans, such as the extension of metro lines A, the necessary reconstruction of tram lines, a significant renewal of the tram fleet, or a reduction in operating costs. Petr Hlubuček was one of the members of the transport company’s supervisory board who, together with Jaroslav Faltýnek and Květoslav Hlína, prepared my dismissal and the dismissal of the economic director Magda Češková, without a single reason. We had the best results in a revolutionary transport company.
Petr Hlubuček has appointed his people, such as the current economic director of the transport company Matej Augustín. It is incomprehensible to me that the current coalition of Pirates and Prague belongs to each other and it still seems that they did not shine. It is a constantly repeated practice of Pirates and Prague to remove experts and install obedient puppets. It is a question of what role the current CEO Petr Witowski played in this story, but at least because of his inexperience in the field, criminal crimes could have taken place right under his nose. I am really very sorry that making a well-trodden process of a transport company a renowned and respected company, which I, with a lot of my very erudite co-workers and honest people, heartbrokers of the transport company, have dedicated hard to, is marasmus again. The disruption of such a great company as the Prague transport company is a crime in itself. Not to mention the criminal methods involved.
“I can imagine cooperation with people from ODS, TOP 09, YES despite some mutual reservations and I can’t imagine it with the Pirates or the Prague movement myself”
How specifically would you like to change traffic in Prague?
One thing is enough. To be managed by experts. There are enough of them, we have CTU here, we have experienced managers. There is no vision, there is no system. That is also one of the reasons why we are heading into politics.
What movement do you go into politics with?
Our name is Prague without chaos. We start from the idea that various activists such as Pirates or Prague are trying to have a positive effect on each other, but the only thing that has changed on Libeň Bridge in four years is that the slow tram ride on it has been canceled, which will probably not solve traffic problems. We probably won’t be able to open Metro D in 2024 either. I did not notice at all that I would deal with traffic in peace, ie parking. Everything focuses on bicycle transport, even in the style that where there is a cycle path, there is also a cycle lane.
Who do you want to work with at the municipal level?
With experts. I want to emphasize more the expertise of a person than his political affiliation. I can imagine cooperation with people from ODS, TOP 09, YES despite some mutual reservations and I cannot imagine it with the Pirates or the Prague movement. I can very well present a constructive cooperation with the new subject Motorists to myself, which comes up with very similar ideas as we do.
Do you plan to deal with things other than transport? For example, issues related to ecology or social policy.
Transportation is our number one. We think city transportation is like blood circulation. When the blood circulation does not work, the body will not survive. our next big topic will be energy prices. We think that Pražská plynárenská is behaving shamefully, towards its clients. We need to change that the city still supports them in this. We are convinced that the crisis will be so deep that it will reach the middle class, which means that tens of thousands of people will need help. We want to do that.
Do you think that the number one election topic in Prague will be traffic?
I think yes. Everything else may be in a state of dissatisfaction, but nothing is as fatal as transportation. She is already in a state just before clinical death.