Várnagy Zoltán: Urban Transportation - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1994)

running long distance coaches and shipping freight. From the seventies on, there were also unlicensed cabbies working the streets of Budapest. They got hold of fares by accosting would-be passengers standing in line at taxi stands. Their being legalized in the mid-eighties was followed by a growth in the number of taxi cabs. There are now some ten thousand taxis prowling the streets, but, according to a decree issued by the city authorities, this figure will soon be reduced to 7,200. There are increasing numbers of comfortable, economical cars, which emit little smoke among these taxis. Although the introduction of CB operators improved the organization of fares significantly, there is a shortage of taxi stands and it may take a good many years before the majority of Budapest taxis can provide services at international standards and at reasonable prices.

River navigation

By the Danube embankment in summer, we can see one pleasure boat port after the other. However, it will be far harder to And a ferry boat to take us from Buda to Pest or to Margit Island and back with one BKV ticket. Yet less than forty years ago the water bus was so popular that everybody new the ditty singing its praise. (The English translation would be something like this: “Hello there, water bus, you are here the best/lf I want to cross the Danube from Buda to Pest.”) Crossing the river is never again going to be as adventurous as it was when ferrymen took people from one side to the other in small boats. In the 13th century, traffic across the Danube was so busy at Jenő, on the Isle of Hares (today Margit Island), that it was worth levying a tax on it. Two thirds of the proceeds were given to the monastery on the island, and one third went to the Buda chapter. Provided there were passengers willing to pay the fare, ferrymen would undertake the crossing even when the river was turbulent with drifting ice. Meedless to say this kind of winter crossing was by no means free of danger. In the 17th and 18th centuries there were so called “flying bridges” in use. These were ferries shuttling, pendulum-like, between the two banks, tied to a long rope anchored to the bottom in the middle of the river.

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