The municipal council of Budapest has decided to terminate a 2009 agreement under which a funicular as well as a bus park would have been built on central Gellért Hill.
The council adopted the proposal to drop the agreement with 17 votes for, 6 against, and with one abstention.
According to the proposal, construction of the planned facilities has not even started in the past 13 years, while “changes to the original technical content renders completion of the project impossible for reasons on the investor’s side”.
The proposal also referred to “significant changes in the legal environment” and said that “the financial equilibrium of the agreement has toppled”.
Mayor Gergely Karácsony said the project would have involved “tremendous environmental risks” and the “spectacle”, whose plans have been modified, would “further burden Gellért Hill” and it would not eliminate the tourist buses currently frequenting the hill top.
featured image illustration via László Róka/MTVA