Brno is preparing to kick off a major communications campaign with its citizens to promote its planned new train station. What’s odd about this is that it doesn’t know yet where that station will be. A decades-long battle over whether, and where to move Brno’s main train station appears to have answered at least the first of the questions in the affirmative (yes). But there are still two new locations in play. One is just a minute’s walk away from the current location and is known under the working name “Pod Petrovem”. The second potential location, which the city’s leadership supports, sits 800 meters to the south, near the Svratka river. One of the ideas of the city’s mayor Petr Vokral is to let residents of the city vote on the name of the new station, just as is sometimes done for newly born animals in city zoos. “It will be our little bear cub,” he joked. “It’s been hectic and tense,” he continued. “That’s why we should work on the preparations and all pull together. We’re preparing a big marketing campaign for citizens that we’ll launch soon.”
This is perhaps a more pragmatic approach to dealing with public opinion. In the past, the city held a referendum than the one taken in recent years when the city held a referendum to decide whether to move the station. It failed to provide an answer when not enough people showed up to vote. The current station is in extremely poor shape, while its location is blocking the development of the city.
