It is difficult to decipher why the city administration says that it has saved the Budapest pass, as well as why the current city administration is characterized by incomprehensible delays in all areas.
For weeks, uncertainty has surrounded the further fate of the Budapest pass, which has been providing favorable travel conditions for eight years now to those living in the capital and the agglomeration. Gergely Karácsony made a series of contradictory statements on the subject, among other things, he claimed that the government wants to take away the popular season ticket from the traveling public, and then blamed the state for fewer flights.
To maintain the system, the contract in force since 2016 should have been renewed, but this was not done. According to the mayor, it was because no one was interested in keeping the Budapest pass alive, including the capital.
Later, however, a BKK correspondence obtained by the press revealed that Gergely Karácsony and Tibor Draskovics - the former finance minister of the Gyurcsány government, who is currently the chairman of the board of BKK - canceled the Budapest pass, as they did not accept the Construction and Transportation The ministry's offer, in which the ministry asked the capital for 8.6 billion forints instead of the 7.4 billion forints per year, unchanged since 2020.
The matter took a new turn with János Lázár's announcement on Tuesday, according to which, after the 2023 settlement, the state is ready to accept the Budapest pass on Volán, MÁV and HÉV flights as well, if the capital accepts the national and county passes of BKK and on BKV flights.
"We defended the Budapest pass," wrote Gergely Karácsony on his social media page, reacting to the minister's offer.
"It is difficult to decipher why the city administration says that it has saved the Budapest pass. The way the capital communicates the case afterwards borders on parody," István Tarlós commented on the developments, emphasizing that
if the Karácsonys accept this offer, Budapest and the population of the agglomeration will undoubtedly do well thanks to the government.
The former mayor - during his 9-year reign, public transport tariffs did not rise in the capital - after comparing the schemes offered by state and capital companies, divided, multiplied and came to the conclusion that "if the current prices are maintained, BKV its sales revenue is expected to decrease, so BKV has to give in and lower the price," stressed István Tarlós, who pointed out that the county pass currently costs HUF 9,450, while the Budapest monthly pass costs HUF 9,500.
"It is quite obvious that there will not be many people who will choose the more expensive option instead of the cheaper option," explained the former mayor, who believes that the Budapest Transport Company could maintain its competitiveness by reducing prices.
"If the capital gives up on the price, the people of Budapest will do well, but not thanks to the city administration, but to János Lázár, who can indirectly force the pass to be cheaper," explained the former mayor, and then highlighted that the 24-hour in the case of tickets, the disproportion is even more obvious.
"At BKK, it was announced at HUF 2,500, and János Lázár at HUF 999, the state's offer is incomparably cheaper, obviously this can be much more popular than BKK's 24-hour ticket," detailed István Tarlós, who pointed out that according to the current situation, BKK's income is definitely will decrease, either because more people will choose the county pass with a better price, or because the company will be forced to reduce its prices.
"After four years, asking for eight and a half billion instead of seven and a half billion is a correction parallel to tracking inflation," he described the minister's previous offer.
"The capital fell asleep, if the contract doesn't expire, this whole situation won't happen, but they missed the deadline, since they should have started negotiating the agreement not in November, but already in July of last year," said István Tarlós, who thinks the delays are incomprehensible characterize the current city administration.
"To this day, there is no professional reason as to why the renovation of Lánchíd or Blaha Lujza tér was delayed, but the contract related to the infrastructure of the M3 metro was not rushed," he recalled the previous "sleepovers" of the capital city government.
Cover photo: István Tarlós
Source: Pesti Srácok
