Smíchov Terminal: What novelties will it (not) bring to cycling traffic?

It’s not just about the reconstruction of the existing railway station. A new Park and Ride parking lot is to be added, and the nearby Na Knížecí bus station is to be moved here as well. „The new Smíchov Terminal will not only include the actual railway station for suburban and long-distance rail transport, the current metro station and the tram stop, but it will also serve as a destination for urban and suburban bus, trolleybus, and electric bus lines. Furthermore, it will create facilities for long-distance bus transport and a Park and Ride parking lot with a capacity for up to 950 vehicles. A solar power plant will also be built on the roof of the terminal in the future. The estimated costs for the terminal’s construction are currently 8 billion crowns,“ said Zdenek Hrib, Deputy Mayor, in the Fall of 2023.

Smíchov Terminal and cycling

Despite being such a large and crucial investment in this part of the city, from the first published visualizations, there were doubts about how cycling would be addressed in this transport hub.

The first visualizations showed merely bike lanes or completely shared movement on Nádražní street, a solution miles away from truly comfortable infrastructure.

Consequently, discussions in the cycling community on this topic were regularly being heard, accompanied by only a minimal amount of official information beyond a few initial visualizations. Moreover, the debates often related only to Nádražní street, although the construction will affect a much wider area.

At the editorial office of „Městem na kole“ we have been gradually collecting bits of information over the past year that could provide more insight into the future solution for cycling traffic in and around Smíchov Terminal. Based on these pieces, we offer the following summary. It must be noted that we tried to obtain an official stance, but comprehensive information was not available even during the course of last year. As the press spokesperson of TSK (Prague Transport Company) informed us, discussions on the management of cycling traffic were still ongoing.

Considered bike routes in the area

To begin with, let’s recall how the Prague cycling master plan views possible movement through this area by bike. This plan, however, should be seen as an ideal vision, which is not always easily achievable and is continuously adjusted according to current conditions and changes.

In the area, the routing of the superior routes A1 and A3, which intersect near the Railway Bridge, is crucial. At the same time, the routing of the A1 cycle route through Císařská louka has long been unsuccessfully advocated – so far, a possible rerouting of the A1 away from Strakonická is not envisioned. The north-south network is then complemented by the proposed main routes A121 and A131 on Strakonická and Nádražní. The cycling master plan also proposes the routing of the main cycle route A13 along Dobříšská, approximately at the location of the previously unofficially used service road through Smíchov station. An interesting addition is the recently included connector A325 designed in an east-west direction through the station area.

It is also necessary to consider that according to the Standards for Active Mobility, each category of planned cycle routes is associated with a different recommended solution. Superior cycle routes are to provide the highest comfort, backbone routes a bit less, and main cycle routes require the least demanding solutions.

Bike parking

Before we delve into the overview of how cyclists are likely to be guided through the terminal, let’s look at bike parking. This is often the first thing we associate with a public transport terminal.

The Railway Administration’s spokesperson Jan Nevola told Městem na kole that the city is preparing important capacity for bike parking as part of its investment. The Railway Administration itself is only preparing the construction of bicycle racks with a capacity for 40 bikes. Prague, as part of its investment, promises the construction of B+R parking lots with a capacity of up to 1000 bikes.

The exact location of the B+R shelters within the terminal could not be determined. Some published visualizations suggest the construction of B+R parking within the P+R parking building on the rear western side of the terminal, others can be inferred in the front at Nádražní street. However, the exact comfort of the B+R parking lots‘ connection to the cycling infrastructure and the rest of the terminal cannot be determined from the presented output.

The routing of cycle routes on Nádražní

From the statement Prague City Hall sent to the AutoMat association at the end of December, which we at the Městem na kole editorial office obtained, it follows that within the construction of the terminal the city plans to focus primarily on the routing of the superior cycle routes A1 and A3 and on the backbone cycle route A13. „The project is in the phase of completed documentation for the selection of the contractor. The project specification includes a comprehensive solution for cycling traffic with protected bike parking directly in the terminal and protected connections for cyclists outside from Smíchov Terminal in all directions,“ writes Prague City Hall.

Furthermore, in its statement, City Hall again mainly addressed Nádražní street. According to information from City Hall, protected infrastructure is not planned for the street, nor is there any guidance planned for any of the three mentioned cycle routes. Cycling traffic in Nádražní street is to be integrated into the main traffic flow, presumably in the form of bike lanes.

In the vicinity of the terminal a pedestrian zone or a 30 km/h zone is planned, where all car traffic except for public transport will be excluded. The main obstacles to implementing protected infrastructure for cyclists on Nádražní street, according to City Hall, are the needs of Smíchov Terminal related to intense pedestrian movement and passenger transfer links, as well as problematic connectivity to the north and south. According to City Hall, protected infrastructure could not be created here without significantly damaging the needs of bus and tram transport, pedestrians, and tree lines.

At the same time, City Hall notes that only public transport buses will operate near the terminal, and in such a calmed environment, protected infrastructure is not a common solution according to the city.

The AutoMat association (MNK is an independent project of the association, ed. note) partially disagrees. According to the association’s statement on social networks there should at least be – in accordance with the Standards for Active Mobility – a designated bike lane on Nádražní street, in the direction from Anděl, where the main cycle route A131 leads and which represents the shortest connection to the terminal.

The situation is further confused by a statement from the Institute of Planning and Development of the City of Prague (IPR), which mentioned on social networks in a discussion with one of our readers that Nádražní street will have separated infrastructure characterized by elevated strips similar to those on Smetanovo nábřeží. However, based on other obtained materials, this option seems less realistic at the moment and is likely a case of communication noise.

The north-south connection behind the terminal

The city plans to focus on the construction of a protected connection from Smíchov Terminal to the surrounding cycling infrastructure network, primarily on the rear (western) corridor with the planned A13 main bike route. It is more or less about creating a connection that approximately follows the former unofficial passage through the station along the service road around MeetFactory towards Knížecí.

The city plans to construct a protected cycle path from MeetFactory to the newly built Smíchov City district, with a connection to Smíchov Terminal. The new path is supposed to run between the terminal and the parallel Dobříšská Street, from which the cycle path will be separated by newly planted rows of trees.

In the south the path will cross a light footbridge that will rise with a gentle curve around MeetFactory, later crossing Dobříšská where rows of trees will be planted to separate the path. The planned width of the path is 4 meters; it is likely to narrow as it passes around the terminal, but it should maintain a minimum width of 3 meters.

North of the terminal, this new connection will be linked to the new Smíchov City district and to the cycle paths being created as part of this project. These are intended to guide cyclists to the area of today’s Na Knížecí bus station, or possibly to the superior A1 bike route near the railway bridge. In this direction, a cycling bridge over Nádražní Street is planned at the location of the former connection to the northern platform, towards the railway bridge. Until the construction of the new railway bridge, however, a provisional routing of cyclists immediately after the bridge down a ramp to Nádražní is planned.

What did not happen

From the released documentation it is clear that the planning of the bicycle passage during the preparation of Smíchov Terminal was not ideal. While the first visualizations of the planned Smíchov Terminal appeared in public already in the autumn of 2018, the mentioned protected connection through the terminal was addressed only around 2021, by which time many aspects of the project itself and related constructions could no longer be influenced.

Thus, the possibility of cyclists passing through the terminal from west to east remains unresolved. Here, walking the bike will be necessary. According to the published materials, the maximum possible solution appears to be bringing the protected bike routes as close as possible to the transport elevators within the terminal (and then walking with the bike through the terminal). Therefore, the connection of the new path behind the terminal to the entrance area on Nádražní Street will not be ideal. It will be possible to ride through without dismounting only further north within the new Smíchov City development, which is being prepared by Sekyra Group.

Likewise, it remains a question whether it will be possible to connect the Dvorecký Bridge and Ke Sklárně Street (MeetFactory) in such a way that cyclists can avoid car traffic. Given the advanced stage of preparation for the Dvorecký Bridge construction, the published materials state that the range of options for avoiding the necessity of riding in traffic on a short section of Na Zlíchově Street is significantly reduced. The still-existing possibilities for implementing this protected connection face a number of objections from the relevant authorities. It is thus possible that cyclists traveling from MeetFactory to the Dvorecký Bridge will not be able to avoid a short ride in traffic.

The published materials reveal a whole series of similar complications. Sometimes, they were resolved at the cost of many compromises. However, this required modifications to already existing projects and a cooperative approach from other stakeholders. For example, moving a bus stop by one meter so that the path behind the terminal could reach a width of at least three meters. Which is still a very narrow width for such a potentially significant connection.

Cycling is still not a natural part of construction projects

The entire story of the planned bike routes within the construction of Smíchov Terminal is not only a hopeful example of a new protected connection but also evidence that even after twenty years of more intensive discussion and inclusion of cycling transportation planning in Prague in numerous conceptual materials, it’s still challenging to consider cycling connections far enough in advance for them to be a natural part of investment projects. And to avoid having to add them later, at the cost of many compromises, especially in terms of cycling infrastructure. Sometimes, this even jeopardizes their very creation, which could have been unproblematic had it been included in the planning stages earlier.

In the case of Smíchov Terminal, this is also an area that has undergone and is undergoing significant changes over the last quarter-century, where cycling passages could have been integrated much better. This will be remembered every time one navigates the S-bend between MeetFactory and Dobříšská, which hasn’t been there for more than that quarter-century. Or on the three-meter path, where it was a close call for it not to fit at all. However, it’s not standing yet, so for now, optimism must be kept in check.