Bohumínská Street is being re-routed underground

Ostrava’s Mayor Tomáš Macura has recently unveiled the City’s bold new plans to re-route Bohumínská Street – a busy four-lane highway running through the central part of the city – into a tunnel. At surface level there will be a standard two-lane street, with lower speed limits, traffic calming measures and plenty of pedestrian crossings; the project will help to revitalize the embankment area of Slezská Ostrava and make it a fully-fledged part of the city centre once more.

Bohumínská Street is a busy transit route, and re-routing heavy goods vehicles and other through-traffic underground will radically transform this part of the city. The project will reconstruct a kilometre-long stretch of the street between the junctions with Dědičná St. and Těšínská St. A feasibility study showed that the project is fully viable, so the City announced a public tender for preliminary investment plans; the winning proposal was submitted by Prague-based company Samson. The full investment plan (at a cost to the City of 930 000 CZK) will be completed by the middle of 2018; an integral part of the plan will be the design of the surface-level layout and features that will help to revitalize the area.

Tomáš Macura explained the City’s plans:

Bohumínská Street is currently a major barrier to movement, and it has essentially destroyed the historic centre of Slezská Ostrava. By re-routing goods vehicles and some private cars underground, we will greatly reduce traffic intensity at surface level – and we will also be able to create an attractive environment where people will enjoy spending time. That means expanding and revitalizing public spaces (such as Gagarin Square), and it will also act as a springboard for future development projects on the right bank of the Ostravice River.

Because this is a very sizeable investment, the implementation of the plans will not begin until after 2020. The precise costs have not yet been calculated, but a rough estimate puts the total investment at around 2 billion CZK. The City expects to be able to part-finance the investment using national and European funding.

Mayor Macura also outlined the City’s plans for another similar location, Místecká Street (on the opposite side of the city centre):

Here too, the four-lane highway represents a major barrier to movement in the very heart of Ostrava, and we would also like to re-route it into a tunnel. However, these plans are not yet detailed and specific enough for us to be able to announce a tender for potential investors.