N. Kósa Judit - Szablyár Péter: Underground Pest - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2002)
The underground river of Pest - the mains trunk sewer underneath the Great Boulevard
of public health, as well as the unsightly presence of the open sewage ditches and cesspits. The physician and professor of medicine Dr. József Fodor concluded from mortality statistics for the years 1869-77 that the incidence of death from cholera was twice as high among those drinking the water of wells than those using the mains system. The first water works was opened in 1868, on the plot of the Lipótváros, Leopold Town, Department of navigation, at the spot where Parliament stands today. This made the building of a sewer system all the more pressing. The first bid for the construction of the mains trunk sewer of Pest was made in 1869 by an English contractor, Sir Morton Peto, who submitted plans made by the chief engineer of London, W. J. Bazalgette. He recommended that three trunk sewers be built; although Peto's offer was rejected, subsequent designs, with Ferenc Reitter’s 1873 plans for a Budapest system, were based on Bazal- gette's ideas. This is what the knowledgeable Hungarian expert says in the introduction to his designs: "It is sensible to spend more on an project whose instalment is vital for the future as well as the present of a city rather than to create, through inopportune economy, something insufficient, whose improvement will necessitate expenditure in excess of the original savings, even providing that such improvement is possible at a later time.” A call for tenders was made by the Board of Public Works in March 1875, inviting designs for a system of sewers to be based on Ferenc Reitter's original plans. The award voted for was "100 natural gold pieces". In June 1877, the jury of prominent experts set up to adjudicate the competitive designs recommended that Lajos Lechner's work be awarded the first prize. In 1883 Ottó Martin, an expert appointed to head the Sewers Bureau, which was formed within the engineering department of the municipality, was charged with drawing up the designs for the general canalisation of Pest, to be based on Reitter's basic plans and to "...include, by any means, a mains trunk sewer and to cover the entire populated area of Pest..." The plans were introduced to the assembly as early as 1884. After expert analyses, professional discussions and prolonged negotiations, the minister of the interior closed the issue in a decree issued on 16 January 1891, and the project, which was to cost 11,044,384 crowns 77 fillér, was launched. Accustomed to high rates of inflation, our modern-day perceptions are pleasantly surprised by the fact that the closing municipal account of 1915 registered an actual expenditure of 10,324,003 crowns 35 fillér. 27
