More visualizations for the railway to Prague’s Václav Havel Airport revealed

More of the future look of the rail connection linking Prague’s Václav Havel Airport to the city center has been revealed. The rail link should be completed by 2029 and reduce travel time between the airport and the city center to 25 minutes.

The Railway Administration (SŽ) has published visualizations of the Dlouhá Míle terminal, which will be located near an airport runway, the Šestka shopping center, and the Prague Ring Road. It will serve as a transportation hub and will provide travel comfort comparable to the stations of European capitals, according to an SŽ press release.

"A new transport hub will be created, which will create an important connection between the railway and road transport, city and suburban buses and, in the future, also trams. A new P+R parking lot will significantly expand the infrastructural equipment of the wider area of the airport and ease the traffic of Prague 6," SŽ CEO Jiří Svoboda said.

Consulting company AFRY CZ is responsible for developing the final stage of the project preparation of the new exterior construction on the railway line between the Prague-Ruzyně and Prague-Václav Havel Airport stops.

Dlouhá Míle is between those two stations on a spur line connecting the airport and the existing station at Nádraží Veleslavín. The city began negotiations to buy the land for the terminal last year.

The design of the barrier-free terminal is by the firm Pavlíček Hulín architekti. "The architectural design makes full use of the potential of the terminal not only as a transport hub but also as a target point for possible future development in the vicinity," architect Jiří Pavlíček said.

The terminal’s dominant feature is its roof. The height of the roof varies according to the functions of individual parts of the building. The roof is lowest above the bus platforms, then rises along a curve toward the main entrance to the underground part with the transfer to the train.

"It makes it possible to transfer comfortably with a so-called dry foot and at the same time guides the passenger. The generous roof is an intuitive navigation system, the highest point of which communicates in a universal language where the entrance is," Pavlíček said.

Simplicity of orientation and the shortest possible transfer time between bus and train were the basic input parameters for the station design.

The roof is glazed in the central part and lets light into the lower levels. Its southern part has photovoltaic panels that will cover the consumption of the terminal and possibly allow electric cars to be charged in the parking lot. There are also places for ticket sales, a waiting room, small shops, and other facilities. These areas will be heated and covered.

Sidewalks will have greenery where it is possible. Some vertical surfaces and roofs will also be greened to allow rainwater retention and to dampen the heat island effect. The architectural study also takes into account the possible need to increase the parking capacity in the future to approximately 2,100 spaces, by gradually replacing individual parts of the level parking lot with up to seven four-story parking buildings.

Currently, travelers going to the airport by public transit have to switch to a bus at the Nádraží Veleslavín stop on the Metro A line. Once the rail line is completed, people will be able to take a train to the airport from Masarykovo nádraží in Prague’s city center as well as from Kladno in Central Bohemia. Design visualizations for the Václav Havel Airport-Prague station were released last year.