Arrabona - Múzeumi közlemények 13. (Győr, 1971)

Vörös K.: City-planning at Győr in the period of dualism

In 1868 the city gas works were established, for the production of lighting gas in the first place. However, the demands of town development could not be satisfied, owing to the disadvantageous concession of the gas company. Thus the town bought off the gas factory as well in 1911, modernizing it by large investments; public lighting was dominated by gas up to World War I. Electric current, produced by the city in its own enterprise from 1904, was meant for the lighting of private flats and mainly for industrial purposes, with the cheapest electricity tariff in all the Monarchy. This fact played a significant role in attracting industry to Győr afterwards. As regards current consumption, the industrial plants of Győr occupied the fifth place in Hungary in 1908. Such a crafty industrial development made the modernizing of the city fireguard necessary; after the experience of some great fires, the town solved this task very energetically and with success from 1908 on, spending much money for the pay of well-trained personnel and on modern equipment, as fire-engines. 6. Finally an important element of civic design was the paving of city roads, quickly proceeding from the 1890s on. In 1908 160 000 m

2 of roads were surfaced with stone, bitumen or (in about one third) macadam; sidewalks, especially in the City, were asphalt-paved in 40 000 m

2

. Considerable sums were expended on keeping them clean; as regards parking, the expenditure of the town occupied the fourth place in the country. By the turn of the century also the demand for mass traffic was felt. In 1913 the plans for three trolleybus lines (of a length of 9 km) were prepared, they could not be realized, however, owing to the war. In order to harmonize the results of city planning and technical urbanization and the demands of society (and vice versa), there was an extensive statutary legislation in the city from the 1880s on. The paper deals with these rules in detail, stressing their importance both in stabilizing the technical achievements legally and in promoting the forms of urbane behaviour. Summing up, the paper emphasizes that on the eve of World War I Győr was already a modern and technically urbanized city even in comparison with the other towns of the Monarchy; it was able to form a basis for both economic and administrative, national or regional functions, concentrated between its walls. Being a result of activities of both city leadership and civic population, this fact deserves to be acknowledged, in spite of its inner contradictions. Károly Vörös 391