Workers are now building a 57-meter pre-stressed concrete bridge over Prague’s metro test track at Zličín, part of a privately-financed highway connection that will link the Metropole shopping center directly to the D5 motorway. Construction began autumn 2025, with Strabag building infrastructure designed by Pragoprojekt — six toll gates, drainage systems, and a supporting wall protecting high-voltage transmission towers. Financed by owners Commerz Real and Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield as part of Metropole’s expansion, it shows how major retail landlords have to invest in their own access solutions when public infrastructure lags.
You could argue that the real story at Zličín is what the city isn’t building. Prague has tendered a CZK 652 million P+R parking garage (596 spaces, making it about CZK 1.09M per space) on Na Radosti street. That’s a 15-minute walk from Metro B Zličín. Does that make it a P+W+R?
Zdopravy.cz says Prague’s former deputy mayor for transportation Adam Scheinherr calls it the first P+R garage without direct access to public transport. It didn’t have to be this way. In August 2024, Deputy Mayor Zdeněk Hřib killed plans to build a new metro station at the site to leverage existing depot tracks. This would have created seamless car-to-metro transfers.
Metropole’s private highway connection, meanwhile, will integrate with a planned 2,000-space parking garage (CZK 1.334 billion, with the city securing 1,400 spaces). The Institute of Planning and Development notes a second phase — northbound entry from D5 — is essential to fully relieve the chronically jammed Řevnická street. The congestion also blocks bus exits from the metro terminus. No completion timeline has been disclosed for either phase.
So…private capital is building direct motorway access for shoppers, while public funds are deployed to build a car park with no transport access. One solves a problem. The other compounds it.
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