New High Street in Downtown of Pest Handed Over12 April 2010
A prominent part of the 5th District of Budapest has been completely renewed with the help of EU funding amounting to over 1.9 billion HUF within the framework of the Heart of Budapest Programme. This not only makes the inner city more attractive for tourists, but also creates a more liveable environment for the district’s residents by reducing car traffic.
In 2005, the Municipality of Budapest announced an international call for proposals for architects bearing the title “Heart of Budapest” aimed at renewing the inner city. The Heart of Budapest public area renewal programme was elaborated by using the results of this call. The development known as “Constructing the new high street in the downtown precinct – Phase 1” is one of the developments implemented within the framework of this programme, which was handed over on 9 April.
The area lying between Kecskeméti Street and 6 October Street intersecting Szervita (Servite) Square and Erzsébet (Elisabeth) Square has been entirely renewed and a new high street has been created within the framework of this urban rehabilitation project costing a total of nearly 5.5 billion HUF to complete. Kecskeméti Street, Egyetem (University) Square, Károlyi Mihály Street, Petőfi Sándor Street, Bécsi Street, Erzsébet Square and 6 October Street have been connected and new pavement has been laid along these streets as a part of this New Hungary Development Plan priority project implemented from EU funding amounting to 1.9 billion HUF. In addition to the new high street created in accordance with the above, new pavement was laid, new public lighting was installed and potted plants were also placed to decorate the narrow streets adjacent to the new high street.
Transformations affecting the central area of the Inner City Lipót (Leopold) District will also bring about numerous traffic changes in the life of Budapest, which is why new traffic regulations have entered into force in the 5th District. Up till now, this "new high street" was one of the major traffic routes in Budapest where transit traffic accounted for 80% of overall traffic in the inner city. This implied extremely high traffic loads for streets located in the vicinity of this "new high street"; noise, vibration and dust pollution had a significantly detrimental impact on the health and feeling of comfort of locals and people commuting into the inner city; moreover, these factors damaged the prominent buildings in this area and had a negative impact on the retail trade of shops located in adjacent streets. The old plan, relating to how this renewed downtown precinct can rid itself of the vast majority of noise and environmental pollution caused by the 13,000 cars traversing the heart of the city each day, underpinned traffic changes introduced by implementing this project.
The majority of traffic changes affect the southern part of the downtown precinct (the area around Calvin Square and University Square), Erzsébet Square and the southern part of Szabadság Square. In accordance with the Highway Code and driving rules, the renewed public area is accessible for local traffic only, with the exception of University Square.
Beyond this high street programme type of rehabilitation, the streets affected by this renewal have predominantly evolved into pedestrian streets with shops and restaurants, whilst University Square has evolved into a communal square similar to Quartier Latin. The “single street” (limited to Váci Street) downtown shopping axis has evolved into a mesh of streets by renewing Petőfi Sándor Street.