Hungary’s most infamous roundabout explained: why it leads from nowhere to nowhere – photos, video

Despite receiving European Union funding and completing, for example, the roundabout on schedule, the project has hit a major snag. The government remains unable to carry out the associated railway development, and without that, the investor Metrans refuses to build its container terminal. In 2021, Péter Szijjártó, the Minister for Foreign Economic Relations, made every imaginable promise. Soon after, reality set in, and today all that remains is stalling.

An important Metrans development — even for Budapest

Between Zalaegerszeg and Zalaszentiván, a state-of-the-art container terminal was supposed to be built, connected by rail and road, so that the German-owned Metrans company would no longer have to transport every container to its northern terminal on Csepel Island before forwarding it to Western Europe. Instead, freight trains could have headed directly from here towards Slovakia, the Czech Republic or Poland, arriving from the Adriatic ports of Trieste, Koper or Rijeka, Átlátszó explained.

This investment is crucial for the logistics firm also because Csepel Island has a transport bottleneck: the Gubacsi Bridge, specifically its railway section. The structure has deteriorated so badly that building a new bridge would be preferable, but no funding was available for years. Currently, trains can only cross at 5 km/h (a speed that is officially monitored). Beyond that, the single-level Corvin junction causes frequent delays because it channels traffic from the southern part of Csepel Island and the M0 motorway onto Weiss Manfréd Road, which leads into Budapest, as well as onto a ring road that bypasses the district centre.

• First METRANS container train left Budapest on its journey to China

The government promised everything — and delivered nothing

Metrans urgently needs the container terminal, but the German company refuses to build anything until the government begins the promised railway construction. Although the foundation stone was laid with Péter Szijjártó in 2021, trains can currently only operate with a change of direction, which is unacceptable for the company. That is why the government planned to build a so-called delta junction west of Zalaszentiván, allowing trains to run north–south without reversing.