Court to decide about the future of Budapest’s southern ring railway line next week

The courts on Tuesday are expected to rule on the environmental permit for Budapest’s southern ring railway line (Déli Körvasút), according to business daily Vilaggazdaság’s online edition.

The Budapest municipality and the local authorities of the 11th and 9th districts earlier said the project would burden the city with cargo traffic. They turned to János Lázár, the construction and transport minister, proposing that the government commit to the construction of an alternative railway ring route (V0) around Budapest. Világgazdaság said that the southern railway line could be operational by 2027. Withdrawing the permit would put the entire project at risk, it said.

State Secretary Bálint Nagy said that the two projects were not mutually exclusive. “[Railway ring] V0 is one of the most important railway projects of the coming decades, and an internationally important one. Once it is ready, the southern railway line will become primarily passenger-focused,” he said. At the same time, the southern railway route would ease the commute for some 2,000,000 people travelling daily between the suburbs and Budapest, he said.

The project’s cost is estimated at 900-1,000 billion forints (EUR 2.4-2.7bn), and would be funded jointly from EU and domestic resources, deputy state secretary Artur Kikina said. The multiphase project would include a rail bridge over the railway tracks at the Danube end of the Ferencváros railway station and a new rail stop at Népliget, as well as developments around Kelenföld and Törökbálint from where it would be possible to connect to the high-speed railway between Budapest and Warsaw.

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