Lorries to flood Budapest? Smog and congestion guaranteed

The Government Office wants the Budapest municipality to abolish the Budapest lorry toll. According to the Office, it was not introduced legally. Deputy mayor Ambrus Kiss said the regulation was adopted in 2011 and there had been no problems with it so far. He added that if the charge were abolished, it would increase through traffic in Budapest, leading to congestion and pollution.

The Budapest Government Office has called for the abolition of the freight traffic fee, as it believes that its introduction was not in line with the rules, InfoRádió reported. Deputy mayor Ambrus Kiss called the request unacceptable, saying that if it is expensive for non-targeted traffic to pass through Budapest, lorries will avoid the capital, reducing traffic and pollution.

He added that the relevant regulation was adopted in 2011, and that the office had no problem with it for more than a decade. (According to some sources, the regulation was, in fact, adopted even earlier, in 2008.)

According to the Municipality of the capital, the city government made the right decision in 2011, it had the authority to do so, and they dispute the position of the Government Office. The first meeting in 2024 of the Budapest City Council will take place on Wednesday. The toll is also likely to be discussed.

Gergely Karácsony, the Mayor of Budapest, reacted on Facebook. He wrote, among other things, that the toll, which has been in place for 13 years, keeps lorry traffic away from Budapest’s inner roads. That is what the government office would now abolish.

“If this were to be abolished, the order that many of you may remember in the city would be restored: queues of lorries on Üllői Road and elsewhere. Well, that’s not going to happen,” he said. He added that he would submit a proposal to the assembly to take the matter to court.

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