Who and what causes car traffic jams in Prague? It’s not lane narrowing, traffic islands, or bike lanes

Over the past week, media outlets and social networks have been flooded with posts about a traffic collapse in Prague. Let’s put aside the fact that transportation also includes cycling and walking, where no such “armageddon” occurred. Few, however, resisted the urge to share their findings on the causes of traffic jams. According to many authors and commentators, recent transport councillors are to blame, supposedly deliberately repairing and narrowing roads or expanding tram islands to make life harder for car drivers. According to AutoMat, however, this explanation falls short, as it often ignores other contributing factors.

One of the main arguments used by those dissatisfied with Prague’s car traffic was a “discovered” chart from the TSK yearbook, showing a decline in traffic in the so-called central cordon of Prague after 2000. The chart is said to prove that there are fewer cars in Prague than before, yet traffic jams are worse. As one V. K. comments on Facebook, claiming to value hard data: “Anyone driving a car in Prague knows that the situation has only gotten worse over the past 20 years. And it’s not because there are more cars, but because it’s intentional.”

What’s really behind the data?

If we want to truly understand what’s happening with traffic in Prague, we need to look at the data more closely than a single — albeit accurate — chart in the TSK yearbook. We must separately assess the inner and outer areas of Prague, consider the impact of the Blanka tunnel opening, the return of car traffic levels to pre-COVID numbers, the steady increase in registered vehicles, and the effects of regulatory measures and temporary closures.

It is true that traffic in the central cordon decreased roughly from 2000, but since around 2015 its intensity has remained nearly unchanged. By the way, the central cordon does not cover the entire inner city — no Vršovice or Žižkov — but only the actual center, from Náměstí Míru to Anděl, Klárov, and Hlávkův Bridge. Even if it did cover the entire inner city, the situation would only be slightly different from 2015. Therefore, any drastic restrictions suggested by the article in recent years are not reflected even in this chart. Street capacity in the center is simply largely maxed out, which, in addition to affecting pedestrians and cyclists, also delays key tram lines.

Regulations are nothing new

Regulatory measures, of course, play a role. The first significant ones — believe it or not — date back to the 1980s, when the current Prague deputy for transport was probably just playing with toy cars and trams in kindergarten. It was at that time that the pedestrian zone on Na Příkopě Street was established. As the number of cars and pedestrians increased, further regulations were introduced (for example, around the turn of the century on Spálená, Vodičkova, and Jindřišská streets near Wenceslas Square), regardless of the current political composition of the City Council. Simply because they create safer and higher-quality public spaces, benefiting both people and local businesses.

What has traffic in the inner city looked like in recent years?

TSK also provides the option to download traffic intensities for the so-called “selected network” (the busiest streets) by year in tables, allowing anyone to calculate traffic volumes in different parts of Prague. At AutoMat, we have been analyzing TSK data this way since the Blanka tunnel opened in 2015, and we recently reviewed the past ten years. You can read the full analysis here: Traffic on the TSK monitored network during ten years since the opening of the Blanka tunnel.

Our analysis excludes the period during and shortly after the COVID pandemic, so it does not show traffic trends in the very latest years. However, it does offer a comparison with the period of dynamic traffic growth following the opening of Blanka. It shows that in the historical center, traffic volumes decreased only slightly between 2019 and 2024 after an initial drop following the tunnel’s opening. In the inner city (roughly within the planned City Ring), traffic intensity is fully comparable to the 2015–2019 period.

In the outer city, traffic intensities are increasing on the main roads (as expected), while in the regular street network, overall intensity has been declining since the 2018 peak. Even so, it remains higher than immediately after the Blanka tunnel opened in 2015. Overall traffic volume on the monitored network has therefore continued to grow—about 2% relative to 2019. It is also noteworthy that the traffic growth between 2015 and 2019 was largely enabled by the new capacity created by the Blanka tunnel, and the increase in the outer city was significantly higher in northern Prague than in the south.

This essentially means that the road network is functioning “as it should”: traffic in the outer city shifts to the roads intended for it, while traffic on regular streets—where cars have the greatest negative impact—is slightly declining.

Presenting this trend as an anomaly or even as a deliberate act is complete nonsense. The reduction in traffic on regular streets is desirable, and in Prague, it is actually insufficient. Car traffic intensity in the inner city should have decreased much more, as it has in many Western capitals—from Vienna to Brussels to Paris. In fact, this reduction was anticipated in the positive EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) decision for the City Ring. Without it—or without the requirement not to worsen environmental conditions in the broader city center—the continuation of the City Ring could not even have been planned after 2011.

So why are you stuck in a traffic jam?

If you’re reading this article while sitting in a car jam or waiting on a blocked tram, know this: it is not proof of a “war on drivers.” It’s simply the result of a basic reality. The limited space of the historic city center has long been trying to accommodate more cars than can physically fit. The growing influx of non-Prague cars—mostly heading into the city—also plays a role. These trips now make up half of the city’s car traffic volume. Regulations, however, started long before 1989 and follow the same approach as all cities that don’t want their centers turned into highway junctions. Street capacity has long been at its limit, and it cannot be dramatically increased without demolishing the Old Town and Malá Strana.

The only functional solution—discussed for 20 years and confirmed by data and global experience—is a combination of transit restrictions, better parking policy, and improved public transport flow. Ironically, this ultimately benefits drivers as well, because fewer cars in the center mean fewer jams for those who truly need to be there. In fact, all of this is included in the program of Prague’s current coalition led by ODS.

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