Brno Greens support the station in the center, will not support relocation

Brno - According to the Green Party, it is more advantageous to keep the Brno Main Train Station in the city center. Therefore, in any potential votes, they will not support the reconstruction of the railway with the station in a relocated position, said Martin Ander (Green Party), the mayor's deputy, to ČTK today. The Greens are the first of the Brno political parties to comment on the analysis of two options for the reconstruction of the railway hub.
    The Greens consider the main benefits of the option with the station in the center to be its accessibility and direct connection to most Brno tram lines. "The Greens see the significant decrease in the attractiveness of public transport and enormous induced costs for the city as the main risks of the option with the relocated station. As expert studies state, traveling for regular users of the integrated system will be extended by an average of seven minutes on each trip to or from Brno after the station is relocated," said Ander.
    According to him, relocating the station will also force the Brno Public Transport Company (DPMB) to increase the number of connections, as it will be necessary to transport tens of thousands of passengers daily from the relocated station to the city. Experts estimated that after the station's relocation, the city will have to spend an additional 150 million crowns annually in subsidies for DPMB, which represents about 15 percent of the current contribution from the city treasury for public transport operations, Ander added.
    The analysis was supposed to assess both the proposal from the previous city hall leadership to move the station 800 meters south of the center and the proposal from the civic association "Station in the Center" for its reconstruction in its current location in the city center based on the same criteria. Representatives of Brno political parties had previously agreed that the expert analysis of both proposals would be just one of three pillars for the final decision. The second pillar will be a list of risks that both options may cause in practice. The third pillar will be the public's stance on both options, which politicians want to ascertain through public opinion research.
    The project to reconstruct the Brno railway hub, which includes the construction of a new station in the southern part of Brno, nearly one kilometer from its current location, was pushed by the previous Brno coalition of the ODS and KDU-ČSL. In addition to the Civic Democrats, it is also supported by the opposition Communists and the People's Party, who joined the new Brno coalition after the elections alongside opponents of the so-called relocation of the station - the Social Democrats, Greens, and independents from the Brno 2006 grouping. The previous Brno coalition supported the project despite the fact that the majority of referendum participants expressed their opposition to it.