On Saturday, the construction of the track near the National Museum in Prague will begin, resulting in a tram service interruption.

Prague - The Prague Public Transit Company (DPP) will begin work on the construction of a tram line on Saturday that will connect Vinohradská Street with the tracks being built at the upper part of Wenceslas Square. Concurrently, the city's Technical Road Administration (TSK) will demolish the bridge and underpass under Legerova Street, which requires the diversion of the highway to the site of the current tram line and its narrowing to two lanes. City representatives and officials inaugurated the construction today. The work is expected to last 20 months, during which trams will not operate between the stops I. P. Pavlova and Museum.

This weekend, DPP will begin removing the tracks on Legerova Street, where the highway diversion will be constructed so that work can commence beneath the current roadway. Below it lies a bridge structure intended for garages of the Federal Assembly, but the project was never completed. From mid-July until the end of March next year, cars will travel on the diversion in Legerova Street only in two lanes instead of the current three.

During this period, workers will be operating under the road. "Certain areas will need to be partly demolished and partly filled with drainage concrete. At the same time, we will demolish the underpass, leaving only sections that will serve as facilities for gardeners and for the maintenance and management of the park," said TSK deputy director Josef Richtr. He added that the work overseen by TSK will cost approximately 40 million crowns. In the future, people will utilize a crosswalk that the city opened in 2021 to cross the highway near the museum.

In March next year, after the return of cars to the original route, DPP will proceed with the construction of the tram line itself on Vinohradská and Škrétova Streets. Its construction will cost 224.7 million crowns excluding VAT, and the expenses will be covered by a European grant. The project will be carried out by a consortium of companies Porr, Porr Bau, and Hans Wendel CZ. According to the technical director of the company for surface transportation, Jan Šurovský, the works are planned to be completed by 2027, parallel to the construction of the line at the upper part of Wenceslas Square, allowing the entire new connection to function simultaneously.

The current tram stop will, according to the company's information, be completely reconstructed, with the new stops being barrier-free, more spacious, and unlike the current ones, placed opposite each other and complemented by pedestrian crossings. "Currently, the stops are not barrier-free and the entire area appears confusing - this will fundamentally change," stated Zdeněk Hřib (Pirates), the deputy mayor for transportation.

Due to the construction work, there will be no tram services from Saturday until the completion of the construction between I. P. Pavlova and Museum, with the disruption this weekend extending all the way to Flora. The restriction will affect two tram lines. Line 11 will run from I. P. Pavlova through Náměstí míru to Flora, and line 13 will operate between the stops Olšanské hřbitovy and the new terminus at Museum.

DPP began the construction of tracks on Wenceslas Square at the end of last June. The cost of building approximately 550 meters of track from the National Museum to the middle of the square is 1.24 billion crowns. In addition to the tracks, the work also includes the reconstruction of the ceiling slabs of the Museum metro station and modifications to the square, the lower part of which has already been transformed in recent years.