Abolishing the downtown ports is not a solution, but creates even more problems, yet the mayor insists on the plan. In whose interest is he acting?
The National Association of Hungarian Shipping and the Association of Passenger Boats held a demonstration on the Budapest section of the Danube in conjunction with a drawing. Twenty-seven vessels protested against the planned amendment of the Construction Regulations on the Danube.
Gergely Karácsony announced on March 31 that the Danube Bank Construction Regulations had been revised and amended. According to the mayor, "we have reached the end of a complicated planning and opinion process that requires a lot of consultation. The opinions received from state, professional and civil organizations amount to dozens of pages, we negotiated with several of our partners until the last moment" .
The politician summarized the essence of the regulations as follows:
We will put order on the banks of the Danube, banish the boats that make life miserable for the residents and disfigure the panorama from the city center, and create the possibility that the banks of the Danube can serve the people of Budapest much better than at present.
Their goal is to "minimize the load caused by harbor ships and to create a healthier balance when using the river for different purposes." The Hungarian National Shipping Association and the Passenger Boat Association reject the plan.
Drawing and demonstration
MAHOSZ and the Association of Passenger Boats have announced a demonstration for Saturday. At the event, twenty-seven boats lined up in the downtown section of the Danube and sounded their horns after the Bibic boat pulled away from them with a hung Hungarian flag. According to the organizers, there were more than four thousand passengers on the participating ships.
Mihály Tóth, the spokesperson of the Hungarian National Shipping Association, explained on board the Budapest ship:
This year, the traditional drawing is connected with a peaceful protest, we are protesting against the planned amendment of the Construction Regulations on the Danube. In this, the decision-makers in the capital would state that ships could use 9 instead of 24 ports on the affected coastal section. This would result in a significant increase in ship traffic around 9 ports, and in addition, the continuously operating engines would mean noise and smog. It is also worth imagining that when 6-7 ships are waiting to dock at the port, there would practically be a traffic jam on the Danube, something like this has never happened before.
The amendment also poses a serious traffic safety risk, the regulations do not specify the order in which ships can follow each other, and it doesn't matter how many passengers they carry, it takes a completely different time for a hundred people or ten people to leave the deck.
The spokesperson also drew attention to the fact that ships should go to the northern or southern area after mooring, but
“these ports do not currently exist, where would they land? If new ports are needed, who will build them and who will finance them?".
Mihály Tóth also mentioned that they are not aware of the fact that the capital's management has consulted with the municipalities and residents of the suburbs about diverting a significant part of the boat traffic to them. The increase in traffic would also mean that, together with the boats, buses carrying tourists would also appear on the affected coastal sections, which would need parking spaces.
"The vacated places can be given to hotel ships, but the power consumption of hotel ships is many times higher than that of passenger ships. On the Újlipotváros section, there is no shore power available that the hotel ships could use, so their generators would run continuously, which would result in noise and air pollution," Mihály Tóth pointed out another aspect, adding: you can really think about what types of programs are allowed into a port, there are phenomena that should be dealt with, "but there are reasonable solutions for this, not the distraction of ships from the city center, which is a disproportionate response".
According to the spokesperson, they have been requesting for years that the seawall use permits be issued not only for one year, but for a longer period, because the aging of the ports is a real problem, but none of the shipping companies can start this investment without a longer period of use. They do not get a loan for the renovation, because they cannot guarantee that they will continue to use the port.
Four million people travel by boat in Budapest, which is 80 percent of the total tourism coming to the capital. It is a matter of national economy, one of Budapest's main attractions is that the city is bisected by the Danube. An important tourism element would be affected by the rule change, putting tens of thousands of people's livelihoods at risk in shipping, in addition, the ship traffic also carries passengers to restaurants and hotels. No one has investigated the effects of the amendment in this direction
Mihály Tóth emphasized.
When asked whether they were negotiating with the capital's leadership, the spokesperson said: "We tried to negotiate, there were apparent negotiations, but the proposals we made were swept off the table. By the way, the previous negotiations were not about this DÉSZ, but about a number of different issues, for example the use of the quays for recreational purposes, but there are no meaningful plans in this area either". The Capital Assembly will discuss the draft next week.
They called to consult the mayor
In the announcement issued by the organizers after the event, they stated that "the Mayor's Office would completely ban ships from the city center, and instead of the 24 harbors suitable for long-term waiting on the Újlipotváros coast, there would only be 9 ports that could only be used for shipping out and in." The approximately 45 passenger ships stationed on this stretch of coast until now could only stop at the remaining ports to pick up and drop off passengers, after which they would have to leave it. For ships without passengers, suburban, among others III., IV., XI., XXII. they should wait in non-existent ports in the district, but not specifically named".
According to the point of view of the professional organizations
"eliminating the inner-city ports is not a solution, but creates even more problems: between the outlying mother ports and the city center, the boat traffic on the Danube will increase even more, which poses a serious traffic safety risk. If the Capital Assembly accepts the amendment of the DÉSZ, this will make all Budapest boat companies impossible, as well as the mooring of hotel ships arriving in Budapest, as well as the operation of office and restaurant ships operating on the affected coast".
The announcement also revealed that "in order to formulate their concerns and clarify their questions arising during the port closures, the shipowners invited the mayor and the members of the Metropolitan Assembly to a consultation, who, however, on the XXII. apart from the district representative, they did not participate in the consultation".
