Buza Péter: Bridges of the Danube - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1999)

The Csepel and the Kvassay bridges span the Soroksár Branch of the Danube providing access to the Free Port of Csepel and establishing a rapid train link between Csepel and the city. Both the road bridge, opened in 1927, and the railway bridge, designated in 1951, are lattice beam bridges.

Much further south, at Pestszenterzsébet, the Csepel Island is connected with Pest by the Gubacs Bridge. This location was the site of an earlier flood prevention dam blocking the branch from the main river. A three-span, lower deck beam bridge has connected these districts since 1924. After World War II it was rebuilt in 1947. Recently it has undergone thorough renovation.

In today’s Budapest, the city of beautiful bridges, the bridges cause more and more concern. In principle, the combined capacity of our bridges is 16,000 vehicles per hour. By 1990, however, the actual number exceeded 20,000. What that means is not only a continuous overload but also the threat of the total collapse of traffic circulation in Budapest.

The danger is rooted in the imbalance between urban development and the construction of bridges that set in following the 1910s. The situation deteriorated after 1949 when further suburbs were integrated into Budapest. Between the opening of the Árpád Bridge and the dedication of the Lágymányos Bridge, no new link between the two banks was created. A comparison with Vienna reveals the intolerable situation. In the Austrian capital following the post-war reconstruction which ended in the 1960s, five new, evenly distributed road bridges were built. In contrast, all the bridges of Budapest are located within the inner boundaries of the old city.

Let’s build a bridge! That was the slogan more than one and a half centuries ago in Pest-Buda. And so it is again.

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