Písnice (Prague Metro)

If the European money comes through they will commence construction of Line D in 2017. Such words trip off the tongue of the documentary maker. This is the proposed line to Písnice. It will travel south. It will be up to the Non-Russians this time, to make it run. It will be the Blue Line. Just as the river flows north in a languorous curve, so the metro will go south in a comical reversal. The fish swim through the pools of translucent water in this remarkable drawing made by a leaky biro. That’s what we see. But Písnice does not turn into Piscine except on the page. Písnice does not mean woodland pools and smooth patterned carp. Písnice means bus depots and supermarkets and schools and medium highrise and squarish houses with swimming pools, and pathways and ponds and parks of ashes and beeches and elms, and dogs and dandelions and lavender and snails to the Czechs. The odds are high the station will always be called Písnice, if it is built. We imagine a station of black-and-gold interiors lined on whitewashed walls with select portraits in oil of great railway men of Prague. A station of constantly changing musical vibrations set up by hundreds of chimes dangling from the roof that are tuned to different frequencies each hour and as each new train comes into the platform, replacing muzak and public announcements. A station, we imagine, of underwater wonder in which features of the Great Barrier Reef that will no longer exist are reproduced in replica for the nautical commuters. A station in which record highs and lows in world temperature are registered on a running digital screen of blue lines. A station unimaginable to either czarists or bolsheviks. They, Prague, must have mixed views about a metro line to Písnice. Who has the money to buy a railway line? Why does it go to their neighbourhood and not ours? What if it never gets finished? That the Prague City Council has not finalised the preferred route would not improve confidence in some quarters. Two options are still under review. The first involves constructing Line D as an eight kilometre seven-station branch off Line C near Pancrác Metro, at a cost of around 24.7 billion crowns (in Australia, $1.3 billion). Alternatively, D could be constructed as an independent route from the city for 29 billion crowns (A$1.5 billion). These figures trip off the tongue of the finance minister. They trip, they slur, they get out of control and inflate. But then, it could all get washed away by 2017 as the river rises, again. Or remain derelict, as economic forces cross the border in the middle of the night. Or stay unbuilt, if a war starts or the climate escalates or the computers collapse. There are plans for Line E, or Line [E], as well. E will be the Purple Line and is said to be a Circle Line. Details are sketchy. Yet the trains will travel to Písnice all going well, and barring better offers, by 2022. Slowly the reality will sink in.