Socialists: Budapest metro line 3 status Fidesz’s failure

(MTI) – Ruling Fidesz has failed on tackling the crucial upgrade of Budapest’s third metro line, the leader of the Budapest chapter of the opposition Socialists said on Sunday.

The government has not allocated funding for the refurbishment of the line, the poor condition of which affects a large number of people in the city, while it has been keen on securing huge amounts for prestige investment projects, said Agnes Kunhalmi.

She said that the municipal proposal on the metro line’s upgrade published recently in the press clearly proves Fidesz’s failure on the issue since the document only acknowledges the need for refurbishment and assigns the task of conducting related talks to Budapest Mayor Istvan Tarlos, while it fails to include any concrete financial details.

Norbert Trippon, the Socialists’ deputy chairman for Budapest, called it outrageous that the city needs to take out a huge loan for the M3 upgrade while as much as 12 billion forints (EUR 38.21m) have been spent on the purchase of a downtown office complex, another half a billion on a mansion hotel and 100 billion forints on the construction of sports stadiums.