Current Affairs Prague transport company seeks to bring back metro turnstiles
A welcome feature of the Prague metro system – its freedom from passenger turnstiles – is coming to the end of the line. The capital city’s transport authority says non-paying passengers are simply costing it too much and now wants to bring back the barriers - a former feature of the metro in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Prague’s transport authority counts on reintroducing turnstiles to the
capital’s metro stations starting next year with work completed on the
barriers by 2012.
The back to the future move is set to cost more than two billion crowns for the cash strapped and highly subsidised authority.
But it believes that the measure will quickly pay off by forcing free riding Czechs and tourist passengers to pay up. Transport company spokesman Ondřej Pečený outlines the problem.
“It is generally said that there is some 10 percent of people that are not paying in the general system of transportation but there are some case studies that we have, for example from France and Moscow, from which it is obvious that this amount is much bigger, around 20 to 30 percent, for example.”
But the idea has been given a mixed reception on the streets of Prague.
“I think it is a good idea because you will not be able to travel without paying. Nonetheless it will have a negative affect on many people because a lot of people, how should I put it nicely, get round the system by travelling for free,” commented one young man.
But a retired woman, who has seen it all before, disagrees: “I think it will just slow people down, it will impede travellers and will not solve anything.”
But such are the numbers of metro freeloaders that the transport company
says the move should pay for itself within four or five years.
