The Air Working Group sent a drastic proposal package to the Budapest municipality regarding parking and driving in Budapest. Mayor Gergely Karácsony called the citizens to the negotiating table, who asked the mayor to extend the payment of the parking fee to the whole of Budapest, so that those coming from the agglomeration cannot use the outer districts as P+R parking lots. The Air Working Group also suggested that, following the Józsefváros model, residents should also pay for parking in front of their houses.

"Two years ago, the Metropolitan Assembly adopted Budapest's Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan, which set the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Budapest by at least 40 percent by 2030. Little progress has been made since then, so the Air Working Group urges the General Assembly to adopt annual emission targets and measures to achieve them," the Air Working Group wrote on its website after the NGO had the opportunity to make proposals for the capital's 2023 work plan .

According to the Air Working Group, it would be possible to quickly reduce traffic on Üllői út, Bajcsy-Zsilinszky út and Váci út. After the renovation of the M3 metro, the bus lane should not be returned to car traffic on these main roads, but a physically separated cycle lane and green lane could be created. This idea may soon become a reality, as Mayor Gergely Karácsony has already announced on his social media page that the main roads in the capital are about to undergo significant changes after the completion of the metro renovation in March.

"There has been talk of a transformation similar to this before, but the implementation has always been delayed," the association pointed out to the capital at the beginning of January. As we wrote: in recent weeks, the mayor met again with the representatives of the Air Working Group to coordinate with them the transformations of the capital's surface transport.

The Air Working Group also made proposals for the transformation of parking, they proposed the extension of the payment of fees and the increase of fees.

"As the experience of the past months proves, the increase in parking fees for non-local residents is widely supported by local residents. And the fact that the stakeholders accept a certain increase in parking fees for local residents is proven by the Józsefváros Municipality's measure, which recently abolished free residential parking and set the annual fee for them at between HUF 18,000 and HUF 30,000," argued András Lukács. . What was described by the chairman of the Air Working Group does not necessarily cover the reality, because in Józsefváros the population was loudly displeased that they had to reach deep into their pockets for their free parking permit.

The full article of Magyar Nemzet can be read here.

Author: Orsolya Nagy

Picture: Máté Bach