It includes:

• the belt highway (the new Prague highway) – i.e. the outer circumferential road running around the city limits
• the city highway – i.e. the inner circumferential road – protecting the historical center of the city
• radial connectors

Construction on only the torso of the complete network of main roads has been completed:

• cca 25% of the belt highway is complete
• cca 50% of the city highway will be finished upon the completion of construction in Smíchov in 2001
• cca 65% of the radial arteries

Movement and traffic form an integral part of not only human but all life. This is certainly more true at the present time than ever before in human history. It is impossible to imagine life today without the diverse forms of fast, frequent and high-quality transportation of people and goods. Unfortunately this important service has particularly in the second half of the 20^th century begun to turn gradually against man, both directly, in the threat to human life in traffic accidents, and in a broader context, with the decline in the quality of the environment.

In the preparation and especially the negotiations surrounding territorial planning documentation, the question of traffic plans is always the most complicated and demanding. This was the case when the territorial plans for the City of Prague were being negotiated, and it is still the case now, in discussions on the Modernisation of the Urban Study of the Prague Conservation Area.

In recent years a number of important changes have been occurring in the field of testing and consequently also in the procedures related to ensuring and demonstrating the quality of construction materials. The changes have arisen particularly through the gradual transformation of regulations in the Czech Republic to meet EU standards, which has introduced both new concepts and new outlooks on the existing issues of testing. This purpose of this text is therefore to provide summary information on these issues.

For centuries, the brick tile (plain tile), or its more refined ‘relative’, pantile, were the elements that determined the overall characteristic expression of historic buildings and urban complexes on the territory of the Czech Republic. A number of attributes of this material contribute to the creation of the characteristic image of an historical building and add to the formation of its value: the vivid colour of this natural material and its variability with aging; its unique unifying image, which at the same time creates the varied and soft structure of the roof surfaces; the use of lapidary details and the very favourable practical attention devoted to preconceived and unified compositions that have been verified through the centuries (its durable and mendable quality); and additional associated attributes such as lime plaster, hewn trusses, wooden windows, stone articulations, or joist ceilings.

The symbiotic relationship of the traditional roof and the historic structure is thus without question. Nonetheless, on a broad scale the sense and any clear will to preserve this exceptionally important relationship seems to have been lost.