Renovated Budapest tram in scandalous state of disrepair

In Budapest, the renovation of the Hűvösvölgy tramway has been completed. However, the new trams have caused many problems for passengers.

The partial renovation of the tram line in Hűvösvölgy, Budapest, was completed in time for the start of the school year. New low-floor CAF trams are now running along the entire line. Stops have been made barrier-free, but this has not been achieved flawlessly.

“In practice, it has created an even higher border than before. It’s not that you have to step on a 5-cm curb. There is a sign on one side that prevents a person over 30 centimetres wide from getting onto the platform without stepping on the tramway track, and on the other side there is a slatted kerb next to the main road,” said Gergely Örsi, the opposition mayor of District 2.

The capital, BKK and BKV are working together to make all stops barrier-free, infostart.hu reports.

“The 56 tramway line, like the 50 line, will be equipped with modern CAF trams, which will partly replace the older, partly high-floor trams. This in itself is a huge improvement, as they are newer, have air conditioning and no stairs to climb into the tram, so they are much more comfortable. What is worth knowing is that these trams arrived even earlier, and the previous city administration committed to a certain number of these trams running on certain lines, in our case lines 50 and 56. However, there were no funds available to run them, and the new government of the capital asked the government in vain to provide the funds for the full accessibility and the complete reconstruction of the lines, but the government did not do so,” said Samu Balogh, chief of staff of the mayor of Budapest.

The trams were put into service because this was a condition for EU funding.

Zsolt Wintermantel, head of the Fidesz parliamentary group in the capital, said that it was proposed last year that the entire line should be made accessible as part of the project.