Petition for the preservation of the valuable landscape character in the northwest of Prague

In these days, a NO 10 BILLION petition is beginning to spread! wasted on an expensive, traffic-defective, and environmentally harmful variant of the road ring in the northwest of Prague.

The average citizen, who has enough worries of their own and does not engage in the events of their community, usually believes that plans for large constructions are assessed by responsible experts who try to choose solutions that impact people and nature as little as possible. This misconception was dispelled for the residents of Prague districts Suchdol, Dolní Chabry, and Čimice when they learned in early February of this year that the City of Prague’s Magistrate is initiating zoning proceedings for the dangerous, uneconomical, unecological, and life-disrupting so-called southern variant of the road ring in northwest Prague. Moreover, it is still undecided which variant is to be built!

In August 2007, at the request of the Ministry of Transport, an independent expert study was prepared comparing the southern variant with another proposed northern variant. This study found the northern variant to be more considerate of people and the environment, significantly cheaper, and structurally simpler and safer. Subsequently, the Government of the Czech Republic, by resolution no. 1064 of September 19, 2007, instructed the Minister of Transport in cooperation with the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Environment to appoint a group of experts to evaluate the alternative solutions for the construction of the ring road. This group has not been properly established to date.

Since March 10, 2008, several continuations of the oral proceedings have taken place at the magistrate as part of the mentioned zoning proceedings. From the very beginning of the proceedings, citizens pointed out the illegality of initiating this process and demanded its immediate cessation. However, the magistrate's officials did not heed them; rather, through fraudulent manipulation of the timing of the final continuation of the proceedings, they prevented citizens from ultimately participating. On this last day, a protocol filled with numerous inaccuracies was read, approved, and signed only by the officials of the magistrate and representatives of the Road and Motorways Directorate and the company Construction of Engineering Structures. To make it appear that the public was present, the magistrate's officials seated themselves behind the presiding table and the representatives of the Road and Motorways Directorate and the Construction of Engineering Structures were placed this time in the public seats (up to that point, they had been sitting behind the presiding table along with the magistrate's officials). With this "act," the magistrate's officials declared the oral proceedings concluded.

In reaction to this unprecedented and scandalous behavior of the City of Prague's Magistrate, there has been a series of official complaints, proposals, and calls from citizens, civic associations, and city districts sent to the City of Prague's Magistrate, its oversight body at the Ministry for Regional Development, to the address of Mayor Bém, to the ministers of transport and the environment, to the Public Defender of Rights JUDr. Otakar Motejl, to many regional and national media addresses, to the European Commissioners, to His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, and other personalities.

Another response is the mentioned NO 10 BILLION petition! More detailed information about the whole affair, images and audio recordings of the proceedings, texts of complaints, the text of the petition, and the signature sheet can be found at www.drahan.chabry.cz and gradually on the new pages of the civic initiative Public Transport Audit www.sosuchdol.cz (the members of the civic initiative Public Transport Audit are civic associations dealing with the issues of the northwest segment of the road ring around Prague).

Initiative Public Transport Audit
Civic Association Nad Drahaňským údolím
Civic Association PŘISO
Company of Šárecké údolí
Civic Association Větrolam
Civic Association for Ďáblice
Civic Association Citizens against Noise and Emissions