Czech urban morphology, street continuity, historical axes, Prague, Brno, Ostrava, walkability, communist-era planning. 1. Introduction The Czech Republic possesses a dense network of medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, and modern streets. However, a specific type — the full length street (Czech: plnohodnotná ulice or celodélková ulice ) — has received little systematic study. These are streets that, from one named end to the other, maintain a single name, continuous pavement, and uninterrupted building frontage or right-of-way for a substantial distance (operationalised here as ≥1.5 km).
Example: Ostrava – 28. října (2.4 km). Character: Follows an old industrial railway or river, wide (30–40 m), mixed socialist realist and late Gründerzeit housing, high truck percentage (18% of vehicles). Facade index 48 (due to smog damage and renovations). Walkability 3.2/5. full length czech streets
Example: Plzeň – Karlovarská třída (1.8 km) and Prague – Evropská (partial, but Prague – Vinohradská (3.2 km) is a prime example). Character: 4–6 lanes, high-rise panel housing or mid-rise socialist modernism, wide pavements, separate tram tracks, uniform setbacks. Facade index 65 (standardised). Walkability 4.0/5 (good but boring). Accident rate low (0.8 per km vs. city average 1.7). However, a specific type — the full length
(false full length — excluded from main sample) But the pure full length surprise: Mladá Boleslav – Tř. Václava Klementa (2.0 km). Character: Mixed medieval origin + 1930s extension + communist infill. Only possible in smaller Czech cities where planners did not rename segments. 4.2 Quantitative Findings | Metric | Full length streets (n=20) | Fragmented control (n=20) | p-value | |--------|----------------------------|----------------------------|---------| | Avg. length (km) | 2.15 | 1.35 (segmented total) | <0.01 | | Walkability (1–5) | 4.1 | 3.3 | <0.05 | | Facade index (0–100) | 71.4 | 52.6 | <0.01 | | Accidents per km per year | 0.94 | 1.45 | <0.05 | | % with tram line | 75% | 35% | <0.01 | října (2
