Final Word from Thursday, September 12, 2002
Not everyone in Prague is concerned that the closed bridges will cause long-term economic damage. Mayor Igor Němec is proud that Prague now has such a large pedestrian zone. Before he left Prague Business Journal to join MF Dnes, Jan Macháček wrote in favor of permanently restricting private car use and making space for public transportation, walkers and bikers. Prague lags behind many European cities in terms of bike paths, and a city transport official told us that it never even occurred to him or his colleagues to use bicycles as a partial replacement for the flooded metro. Prague spends about Kč 10m each year on bike paths, but they're primarily for recreational and not commuting purposes. An estimated 160-180km of the planned 400km in bike paths have been completed. We were told that instead of speeding up the process of completing the paths, the floods will actually slow it down.