Drastic speed decrease will come in Budapest

A new era will start in the Hungarian capital concerning all drivers in weeks. The reason is that the municipal council will accept Budapest’s new traffic security strategy in their late-June session, and its execution is to start after the decision.

As we wrote HERE, in February, a fatal accident occurred in Budapest on Harminckettesek Square. A car crashed into a tram stop. A 23-year-old woman waiting at the stop died of her injuries at the scene. According to a police statement, a 41-year-old Italian man caused the accident. Bors, a Hungarian tabloid, reported that he tested positive for alcohol. Gergely Karácsony, the mayor of Budapest, said that something needed to be done to reduce the number of fatal traffic accidents in the city. He announced that he would start working with the police to ensure that accidents like the recent one would not happen again.

New strategy ready

Karácsony and Tamás Terdik, Budapest’s police chief, shared a document regarding the main directions of a new road safety strategy at the end of this February. You may find our article on the issue HERE. Basically, it aims to reduce road fatalities by half by 2030 and to zero by 2050. Therefore, they would like to reduce speed limits in many city areas. Furthermore, the number of residential areas would double in the city. That means there would be twice as many areas with a 30 km/h speed limit as before.

At first, experts at BKK suggested that the maximum speed on the Hungária Ringroad should be 50 km/h instead of 70 km/h, and on the Grand Boulevard, only 40 km/h. Furthermore, they would install new speed cameras and continue the pedestrian crossing renovation program that started three years ago. For example, two such cameras would be placed on the expressway to Budapest Airport.

New speed cameras and speed limit decrease

Since the social report process ended, the city’s council is ready to decide about that strategy before the summer break. Meanwhile, several Budapest districts carried out modifications for road safety. For example, the 6th district increased the number of streets with a 30 km/h speed limit, 24.hu wrote. The 2nd district will install speed monitoring cameras in July in the following places:

• Árpádfejedelem Street 12.,
• Hidegkúti Street 128.,
• Kapy Street 40.,
• Máriaremetei Street 132.,
• Nagykovácsi Street 4.,
• Törökvész Street 31.,
• Zöldlomb Street 24.

Between 2011 and 2021, 471 people died on the public roads of Budapest despite the restrictions during the COVID pandemic. In Budapest, the rate of deaths caused by accidents is 2.9/100,000. That rate is almost 0 in the Scandinavian cities that introduced Vision Zero policies, but Vienna, Berlin and London also have better numbers. Sadly, in Rome, the rate is 5/100,000.