The construction of the almost thirteen-kilometer four-lane road, which will take cars away from densely populated parts of the city, should start next year in July. The first drivers will pass this way at the end of 2027. “The road crossing is a priority construction for us because it diverts transit traffic from built-up areas. It is related to the construction of section 511 of the Prague Ring Road between Běchovice and D1, both parts should be put into operation at the same time,” said Radek Mátl, CEO of the Directorate of Roads and Highways, on Tuesday.
The selection of the contractor for the Běchovice-Úvaly road for more than six billion crowns is underway. The decision is to be made by the end of October, Mátl did not rule out a slight shift. “I believe that in the first quarter of 2025 we will sign a contract with the contractor and have the building ready to start,” he said.
Until then, the property settlement remains to be completed, about 75 percent of the land is currently purchased. In November, the cutting of bushes and younger overgrowth will begin. Fallen trees will be replaced by new ones. According to him, there are enough actions that could delay the start of construction. He mentioned possible appeals or complicated land expropriations. “But the zoning decision was obtained without an appeal, I believe that the following administrative proceedings will take place in a similar way and construction will begin in July,” he said, adding that the new road will contribute to smoother traffic to and from Prague.
By law, any construction of critical transport infrastructure must be preceded by rescue archaeological research. “We will encounter findings from the Early Stone Age to the High Middle Ages,” revealed Jan Mařík, director of the Prague Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.
It is based on analyzes that experts have already carried out on site. According to him, traces of settlement are relatively intensive, especially in places where the future construction crosses watercourses. “Ceramic fragments, animal bones, bronze and iron artifacts, graves,” he estimates, is what his colleagues come across most often.
Route of the future road
First comes the heavy equipment. Excavators uncover the soil to a depth of 20–50 centimeters, sometimes up to a meter. Then the archaeologists will start, there will be up to ten of them. They explore over a hundred hectares. “You can see the furrowing across the construction,” Jakub Krenk with the Skanska company showed what the excavator had already cut down.
511 this year
The Directorate of Roads and Highways is also selecting a contractor for construction marked 511, one of the most important transport constructions in the country, which will connect D8, D10 and D11 with highways 1 to 7 and divert a significant part of transit, especially heavy freight traffic from the City Ring Road. The decision should be made in October.
The twelve-kilometer highway with two tunnels and relatively complex interchanges has a legal construction permit after years of preparation. “We would like to sign a contract with the contractor and start construction this year,” explained Mátl about the next steps. Here, too, archaeologists are investigating, having examined about 60–70 percent of the land since this spring. This is an area of 36 Wenceslas Squares, 24 of which are waiting to be covered.
“We discovered graves from the migration of peoples, the Bylan culture, settlements from the younger Iron Age, graves from the Late Stone Age, finds from the Roman and Bronze Age,” Mařík responded to Novinek’s question about what archaeologists have already found. According to him, these are quite common findings. “But thanks to their concentration, it is an exceptional situation for us to look at the eastern edge of Prague in a much more complex form than in the partial researches that are underway,” he added.
