<p>The Dobrovský tunnels are at risk of delay</p>

Brno - The construction of the Dobrovského tunnels, a future part of the Brno city ring road, is facing delays. The Municipal Court in Prague granted the opponents of the project their request on Wednesday and suspended the building permit. The spring deadline for the start of excavation is now seriously threatened, said Jiří Rupp, director of the Brno office of the Road and Motorway Directorate, today to ČTK. Excavation of the tunnels cannot begin until a final court decision is made.
According to Hana Veberová, the judge at the Municipal Court in Prague responsible for the case, the main hearing will not take place until the beginning of next year. "It probably won’t be done this year. The proceedings involve many participants. The court first has to address all of them, wait to see how many actually respond, then send them the complaint, and wait for their statements," Veberová told ČTK.
The lawsuit against the construction of the tunnels, which will cost around eight billion crowns, was filed by residents from the surrounding streets who are concerned about the potential damage to the structural integrity of their family homes during excavation. According to Rupp, about a hundred houses will be affected by the construction, but the lawsuit was filed only by residents of two of them. "Of course, the houses will settle due to the construction. However, we will cover all the necessary securing work and will also pay for any repairs to cracked walls," Rupp said. Some residents, however, expect that their houses will completely escape the effects of the construction.
According to Karel Štěpaník, the chairman of the civic association Great City Ring (VMO) Brno, it is better to use a mechanized shield for excavation instead of traditional methods usually employed for the construction of alpine tunnels, due to the geological conditions in Brno. "According to the expert evaluations we have available, in such cases, only a slight surface settlement of up to 20 mm can be expected, which would practically not endanger the buildings on the surface," Štěpaník stated. However, Rupp emphasized that using a shield is more suitable for long subway tunnels, as it requires a large area to start. "In the case of a tunnel a few hundred meters long, it is uneconomical," Rupp added. Nevertheless, he is willing to negotiate with representatives of the residents and wants to prepare another expert evaluation on the impact of excavation on the structural integrity of the surrounding houses.
The construction of the Dobrovského tunnels, a future part of the Great City Ring, officially began in June this year. However, excavation of the 1.25-kilometer-long tunnels is not set to begin until next year. The tunnels are expected to be in operation by 2011, with the completed project slated for 2013. The costs are estimated at eight billion crowns, with the city of Brno covering 400 million crowns, while the rest will be financed by the State Fund for Transport Infrastructure.
The Ministry of Transport is also preparing further stages of the ring road, such as the construction of a bridge over the Svitava River in the Tomkovo Square area and Rokytova Street, or the construction of a tunnel under the Akátky district in Brno. The Brno Great City Ring could be supplemented by another tunnel. Its construction is advocated by the city districts of Židenice and Vinohrady instead of the original proposal, which assumed the route of the ring road would go along Rokytova and Žarošická streets in the eastern part of the city.

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