Museum Underground Parking
Implementing the vision of a car-free City Park has reached a landmark: the Museum Underground Parking Lot has been opened as part of the Liget Budapest Project. The facility provides green parking on Dózsa György Road for park visitors and local residents. The three-storey underground car park with 800 spacious parking spaces is completely accessible and fitted with EV charging stations as well as parking spaces for families. The unique feature of the car park in all of Europe, namely that reflecting the more than one-hundred-year-old tradition of the City Park being home to the arts, the interior of the car park is decorated with reproductions of 12 masterpieces selected from Hungary’s national collections, one work each by twelve outstanding Hungarian artists from László Moholy-Nagy and Ilona Keserü through Dóra Maurer and Imre Bak to Victor Vasarely. This interior is not only unique and spectacular but also assists users in finding their way around. The area above the Museum Underground Parking Lot has finally been returned to the City Park: the basalt stone paved site occupied for decades in the past by parked cars is now replaced by an atmospheric promenade with more than ten thousand square metres of green surfaces.
Currently, 15,000 cars drive through the Városliget each day, and more than 1,500 cars are parked here on a daily basis free of charge, which is virtually unparalleled in other such prominent places in the capital. One of the most important objectives of the Liget Budapest Project is to radically reduce car traffic in the renewed Városliget, thus decreasing the environmental footprint and increasing the green space by returning a certain part of the area now occupied by cars to the park. This, of course does not mean the end of parking in the Városliget. In the coming years, three underground car parks will be built on the edge of the park. It is anticipated that, thanks to this solution, the air will be cleaner, the life expectancy of the Városliget’s fauna will be extended and noise pollution will be decreased, while walking and cycling will be safer.
A unique and spectacular feature of the underground parking lot unmatched by any other in Europe is the reproductions of masterpieces selected from Hungary’s national collections in the facility’s interiors, which not only enhance the visual experience but also help visitors to find their way around. The walls are decorated by reproductions of a geometrical, nonfigurative masterpiece each by 12 prominent Hungarian artists selected from the collections of the Museum of fine Arts, the Hungarian National Gallery and the Vasarely Museum, lending an inimitable character to the new facility and matching the spirit of the cultural traditions of the City Park and its overall renewal.
The fully accessible underground parking lot has designated spaces for mobility vehicles and motorbikes, while those with electric cars can benefit from parking spaces with EV charging stations. The Museum Underground Parking Lot is an ideal choice for those coming to the Városliget Sports Centre and the running track, as well as for families visiting the Main Playground, and park visitors in general; moreover, it makes life easier for people working in the nearby offices and the residents of the surrounding districts, the latter of whom can benefit from reduced parking fees. Two hundred parking spaces can be used from 5 p.m. to 9 a.m. free of charge by residents of districts 6, 7 and 14 with valid parking permits issued by the local government after a one-time registration payment of HUF 2,000 is made and registration on the Liget Budapest Project’s homepage is completed.
