From April, buses will depart from the new České Budějovice station

České Budějovice - At the end of this week, buses will depart from the new České Budějovice station, which is unique in the Czech Republic due to its location on the roof of a commercial and social center. At the same time, the alternative bus station will cease operations from April 1. Passengers are already being informed through flyers in the buses, and in the first days, students will help them find the new platforms.
"Given that everything is concentrated in one place, the transfer of passengers should not be too problematic," said Milan Žoha, spokesperson for Mercury Centrum, the company that financed the complex. The construction of the Mercury transport-commercial center, whose roof with the bus station architects cleverly refer to as an airport, took a year and a half and cost nearly one billion crowns.
The advantage is that it utilized the area of the previous bus station, and there was no need to take over additional land. Including the check-in hall and access ramp, it occupies approximately one hectare.
The roof is utilized by the bus station in Brno at Zvonařka, where there are only parking spaces for waiting buses. "Unlike the Brno bus station, the Budějovice building synthesizes several elements - a connection to the train station, parking spaces for about 700 cars, a commercial and social center, and a check-in area for integrated bus transport," said architect Jiří Střítecký from the České Budějovice Atelier 8000 to ČTK.
He also pointed out the concentration of technology of the entire building into a single "heart" on the roof of the check-in hall; he noted that the access ramp is statically designed as an inclined bridge. The membrane roof covering the space for passengers, so-called dragon wings, has no equivalent in the country according to Střítecký in this scope.
Investor representative Zdeněk Hanzálek told ČTK that the biggest problem was designing the roof area to accommodate the heavy bus traffic while avoiding issues with thermal insulation and water leaking into the commercial center below it. "From that perspective, no project existed; it's actually an experiment," he stated.
According to Hanzálek, the so-called sawtooth arrangement of the area is useful, where platforms are placed side by side the width of a bus, so passengers do not have to walk far. They will be brought to the roof by escalators and three elevators; the new building will also include luggage storage, information on timetables, and advance ticket sales.
The last bus from the provisional station will depart on Saturday, March 31, at 8:30 PM to Vodňany. On April 1, the new platforms will be first tested by passengers traveling to Borovany at 5:45 AM, Žoha specified. The public will be able to see the space for the first time on Thursday at 6 PM, when there will also be a cultural program prepared there.