Final Word from Friday, September 14, 2007
Prague Mayor Pavel Bém admitted to MFD that in many places in the city, the traffic situation is catastrophic. He promises to improve it by building dozens of kilometers of new roads and 10 new metro stations by 2010. Fine, but we ask how this is going to help unclog, say, Letná, when the literal light at the end of the tunnel is out of order? On a recent day, the tunnel was backed up for 1.5km merely because there was no police officer to direct traffic as the BRAND NEW traffic light at Štefánik Bridge went on the fritz. Next to the traffic light is a high-tech camera for big-bothering over us, but it's not very good at out-of-the-box thinking when something goes wrong. Bém might keep in mind that although infrastructure costing billions of crowns is part of the solution for decongesting Prague's roads, sometimes all it takes to send red-faced commuters on their merry way is a well-placed rookie traffic cop earning Kč 115 per hour.[Czech Republic ODS MF Dnes highway construction streets]