***CORRECTION***
At roughly 1:58 in the video I said that bikes weren’t allowed in the pedestrian zone. They actually are, because the sign says that all vehicles up to 3.5 tons are allowed, which applies to bikes too.
Sorry for being an absolute bellend.
Urban cycling in Prague sucks. It consists of constantly weaving through traffic, praying that you don’t get hit. It is dangerous, and you have to breathe in car fumes and suffer the noise. In this video we’ll explore the reason, why is cycling in Prague so bad?
sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Xfyzh-s_sgQAODzoIlpk1gVzTrFUZ-CRXvaZK2x4nvI/edit?usp=sharing
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0:00 Intro
0:47 Automotive hell
2:57 Hills
4:04 Lack of cycling infrastructure
4:39 Out-of-Prague commuters
6:05 Outro
#cycling #prague #urbanplanning
26 Comments
Thanks for the video, I was about to come to Prague with hopes to get my way done with cycling. But do you think we, the cyclists, can actually change the stereotypes?
Greta video
This channel is going to blow up
nc video, hopefully in the future our cities will have better cycling improvements…
from Türkiye
I agree that the biking infrastructure in Prague sucks and the city government obviously doesn't do enough to improve it.
I just want to point out that it's also not all so bleak – I believe the number of people biking daily almost doubles in the past years, Czech Republic also has a plan on how to interconnect the whole country with bike paths and as for the numbers like in Vienna: The chart you shared says 25% use cars, 38% use public transport. In Prague, at least according to Wikipedia, it's also 25% for cars but 52% for public transport (22% for walking). That includes people coming to Prague like you said at the end of the video. I'd say one of the problems is also that Prague is a way more condensed city than Vienna where there simply isn't that much space for cars and makes it look like they're everywhere, where the arguably much wider streets of Vienna have advantage. Of course that doesn't excuse that the newer parts still have terrible biking infrastructure.
Nah, Svoboda is planning to make it worse here
Dang not even a complete river path across the entire city. I don't think you can bike on sidewalks either unlike in some US cities
2:20 Bicycles are vehicles under 3,5 t (vozidla do 3,5 t) in Czech law so they are allowed there.
This video is NOT about cycling but about chronic hatred for cars.
3:14 this map is missing around 40 % of Prague’s population.
4:35 tá značka napravo ? WTF ?
lol, according to the graph at 0:16, more people travel by aeroplane than by bike in prague
Cars are a problem, but this problem is insignificant when compared to the real problem, the lack of cycling infrastructure. It's not like people in Amsterdam don't have cars, there's hundreds of thousands of cars in Amsterdam too, you know.
Prague is shit
E-bike definitely helps with all these hills and the general speed of traffic, however I've realized I've been in fact using the e-bike as an underpowered moped. That makes me wonder why are there all these tin cans with a single person in them occupying 2x more width and 4x more area than necessary, and not nearly as many motorbikes, certain kinds of which are legal to ride with a car license.
The map of separated bike paths in Prague is still better than Chicago 🥺
Mmm Czech urbanist channel, something I missed dearly. Thanks and keep it up 😉
hear me out, 4:23 is actually bad practice. it confirms that bikes should go here and nowhere else, because the rest of the street is purely for cars and trams. the good practice is closing the waterfront for transiting cars. that way, you dont need no shitty 300m bikepath. cars could still park there, and bikes would ride on the leftover asphalt.
both the west and east waterfront were meant to be closed for transiting cars 10 years ago, after the opening of Blanka tunnel system. >70% of residents currently agree with this, yet politicians are just daft and refuse to limit cars, because that would be communism and gulags would pop up immediately or something.
so, to sum it up, consensus is waterfront should be closed for cars, that didnt happen, mistake number 1. since that didnt happen, this bikelane was built, only 300m and pretty much useless, cost a lot of money, mistake number 2. since now there is this bike lane, the politicians can argue that they dont need to block transiting cars to ride bike there, since you can just use the bikelane.
its a damn mess
A potom se všichni diví, když cyklisté raději jedou po chodníku…
Please don't forget about those thieves in Prague. 😠 I had the bikes parked in Hradec Králové for almost a year, just locked on the street near the main station and no one touched them. In Prague, the first day on the street and they were gone.
The new ODS city government is making and going to make the problem worse.
Or do they strike you as less car-friendly than the Pirates?
It's a shame that the Pirates are kind of the best there is in Czechia regarding environment policies, but they still don't do enough for bicycles.. 🙁
Jako pražák bez auta jsem zvažoval, že si pořídím kolo, a pak mi došlo, že bych s ním po Praze jezdil jen na nádraží, protože bych ho reálně používal teprve, až bych vystoupil z vlaku.
Pak jsem si říkal, že bych si pořídil skútr. Jenže znovu, po Praze by s ním jel tak max. 2x týdně někam na nákup (což zvládnu i MHD) a jet někam 100 km po dálnici na skútru (i kdyby byl dost výkonný pro dálnici) fakt nechceš.
Takže zůstanu u osvědčené kombinace chůze/MHD a na nějaký experimenty s kolem můžu hodit bobek.
I don't really like cars, but I think to use bikes in Prague is really not ideal, firstly – so many really long hills that you just need e-bike and try to let it at street, you will find just your lock there with no bike later. 😀 And second – year pass for public transit is that cheap that literally all praguers have it, so why cycling somewhere when you can just hop on bus or tram? Ofcourse in some specific parts of Prague, cycling is possible and good way how to move, but generally in Prague? I don't think so. I will get faster from Prague to Dresden then you get from one corner of Prague to other corner of Prague on a bike. 😀 Prague is really a big city, it's totaly crazy idea that you would commute from let's say Zbraslav to center. And ofcourse, in crowdy historical center, it's mostly better just to walk and then jump to tram or metro again whan ride on a bike and risking that you will end under car or someone will beat you just because of hate against cyclists.
I still don't understand why taxis are allowed to drive where cars are normaly banned, it doesn't make any sense to me.
3:42 – I've been to Vienna and I would not call it literally safe when you are a pedestrian and you accidentaly step to some "bike highway" like it happened to me many times, some people go like 30+ km/h there on their bikes. 😀
I walked and traveled in Vienna a lot and I would call it traffic hell to, center is highway the same as Prague center, few wide bike lines make some difference, but generally, Vienna is still car hell with smoke and noise everywhere.
BTW, most of Praguers I know don't have a car and many of them don't even have driver license, most of those cars are people commuting to Prague.
bike lanes are pretty everywhere in prague, but cyclists rather using motorways to piss off drivers , Doesnt know traffic rules, without insurance, no registration…
It doesnt help either that the "pražský okruh" isnt build yet.
2:05 🤣