Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: fiasco

Tunel Blanka Construction, Letna, Prague, CZ, 2010

14 Jul 2010 1 1 414
I don't know as much about Tunel Blanka as some people, but honestly, how much do people need to know? The project has been going on for years, turning Hradcanska and the north side of Letna into a dirty, noisy construction site, with blasting going on. The blasting has resulted several times in lethally dangerous cave-ins that have opened giant holes in the ground in random locations in parkland full of tourists and hikers, and even the cut-and-cover method of construction often being used isn't what the city said would be used, resulting in massive disruption beyond what they had promised (even if admittedly it's not as dangerous as the blasting). Then there's the purpose....to encourage automobile use and the car culture, increasing traffic congestion in the city and diverting business out of it, potentially collapsing the local economy and leaving taxpayers with an astronomical bill for construction. The reason for this? Apparently they think people are ignorant enough to believe that freeways reduce congestion instead of increasing it. You'd think that after Communism people would know better, but apparently the Communists' ideas about urban transport haven't been adequately discredited, even though everywhere freeways have been built, everywhere in the world, they've been catastrophic failures in traffic abatement.....at least until the local economy collapses to such a degree that all the people leave.