THE BUDA SIDE LOWER EMBANKMENT CASE „REGIONAL GRASSROOT ACTIVITIES AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT”

THE BUDA SIDE LOWER EMBANKMENT CASE„REGIONAL GRASSROOT ACTIVITIES AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT” Tamás Fleischer MTA Világgazdasági Kutatóintézet <tfleisch@vki.hu> <http://www.vki.hu/~tfleisch/> BGF KKFK – Ritsumeikan University UNESCO Partnership Program Budapest, 1st March, 2006

The Buda-side lower embankment case • End-of-pipe unsolvednesses – and the century-old dream of the sewage collector and the central cleaning plant • Changing role of the embankments in the life of the cities • The planned four lane road to solve the traffic problem. • The report of the mission of UNESCO and ICOMOS experts • The interpretation of the Report of the mission • Present perspectives • Other questions, remarks

End-of-pipe unsolvednesses • End-of-pipe solution: when don’t think over the causes, see but the effects – and we try to solve this latter • End-of-pipe unsolvedness: when don’t think over the causes, see but the effects - and we don’t even try to solve this latter

End-of-pipe unsolvednesses • An afternoon walk in Madras (Chennai) • The river, as the ‘brown zone’ of the city • Where the residents turn their back to the river • Fortunately we don’t do such terrible things at home • Or still?

End-of-pipe unsolvednesses • Or still? What about the ‘Ördögárok’ (Devil’s ditch)?

End-of-pipe unsolvednesses • We do turn our back to it now • The Devil’s ditch in the Városmajor (Town-park). Barabás Miklós 1854

And what about the Danube? Do we turn our back to it too?

And what about the Danube? Do we turn our back to it?

And what about the Danube? Do we turn our back to it? • The Danube was a frequented trading corridor with a tracker-route and with ports along its embankment • The direct trading role gradually decreased, Houses were built along the riverside, a the city began to turn toward the river. Swimming pools, boats, ships, promenade, urban life. • Better water supply, more and more sewage water – and all goes to the river. The mouth of the Devil’s ditch is now the end of the pipe. • As a matter off fact we again turn now our back to the Danube, but this time with bad conscience. • …That is why we decided to extend the pipe and the sewage water of two-third Buda transport 8 km-s to Csepel island. By that way ‘we let the Danube being again clean and attractive’.

And what about the Danube? Do we turn our back to it? • I personally have doubts if it were an up-to-date solution to collect the sewage water of a half metropolis and transport it to great distances just for handling it together in a huge cleaning plant. • The sewage system gradually should be changed from unified (sewage and rain water together) system to a separated system. The existing open-end sewage system would be good for the rain water, that keep on can directly be driven into the Danube – while the household sewage water could be cleaned in small local cleaning plants, and from those it could also be gone to the Danube along the old sewage system. • This is not happening, because the whole system has a huge inertia, (path-dependence). Even if it is known, that the direction we follow is not good, we are not able to change. We are not able to change our mind.

And what about the Danube? Do we turn our back to it? • … and joining to the sewage water system construction „if the supporting wall is to be transposed anyway ” it seemed to be an excellent occasion to widen the road with two extra traffic lines. • …in order to let here go those traffic, that we decided to send here in a period, when we were just turning back to the river! • That type of ‘relative through traffic’ is normally sent to those parts of the town that can be easily sacrified in order to help the traffic flow. • The inner Buda embankment is definitively not such a part of Budapest.

And what about the Danube? Do we turn our back to it? • Otherwise – we called the attention - the sewage collector could be constructed under the lower embankment, or under the upper embankment, or under the pavement in Fő utca, or in the river bed, or under the river bed - too. • In such a case it could have been said ‘if the pavement is to be changed anyway’ it would be possible to build a pedestrian pavement, an exclusive road for public transport, a calmed traffic street, an extended tram line – that is investments for a better life in the district, rather than improve the circumstances of the transit road traffic.. • All these latter suggestions could be much more harmo-nised with the official targets: to decrease the traffic load, the through traffic, the environmental pollution.

And what about the Danube? Do we turn our back to it? • In an urban fabric, one can decrease the traffic load of a section, if I make the site less attractive for car traffic: if it is net possible to drive along the whole section, if the road has no priority, if because of speed limits it is not worthy to choose that way, if one have to pay if want to use thet section etc. • Just differently, the official plan wanted to make more attractive the lower embankment for the through traffic. It increased the car traffic, by that way perpendicularly also increasing the feeding traffic. The result is, that the traffic in the district - that was declared to be protected from the traffic - does not decrease, while the connection with the Danube changed definitely worse.

Paris 2002Plage at the Seine

Budapest 2004Plage at the Pest

South-Korea: Cheon

South-Korea: Cheon before and after

Source: P.-M. Tricaud. B. Maldoner. Evaluation of Buda Embankment Wastewater Collector and Road Project 20-22 March 2005.

Interpretation of the Mission Evaluation • I have never heard communicating, what really was the preferred alternative the two authors found best • Namely: „removing the road and restoring the former aspect of the embankment” • It is true, that the authors correctly added that this solution ‘was not acceptable by the current position of technicians with regards to functional issues’ • But, when these technicians refer to the opinion of the foreign experts, it would have been right to quote similarly correctly their statement

Present perspectives

Present perspectives • The good news that the four lanes widening of the embankment was abandoned. • The bad news that the planners didn’t want to understand the real message: a more liveable environment needs calm, less traffic, pedestrianisation, more public space. • What is planned now, formally follows the advises of the non-widening of the embankment, but want to send more lorry traffic to the areamaintains the place for a future tunnel under the lower embankment, that is still they want to press here through the north-south traffic of Buda.

THE BUDA SIDE LOWER EMBANKMENT CASE„REGIONAL GRASSROOT ACTIVITIES AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT” THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION ! Tamás Fleischer Institute for World Economics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences <tfleisch@vki.hu> <http://www.vki.hu/~tfleisch/> BGF KKFK – Ritsumeikan University UNESCO Partnership Program Budapest, 1st March, 2006

THE BUDA SIDE LOWER EMBANKMENT CASE „REGIONAL GRASSROOT ACTIVITIES AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT”