Project title
SZABIHÍD project
Goals
Our goal is to ensure adequate infrastructural conditions for the programs taking place on on Liberty bridge July 2019, when the entire bridge will be turned into a pedestrian bridge for four summer weekends. The entire bridge will become a public community space, hosting music, theatre, literature, art programmes, as well as sports games, friendly get-togethers and community events. We would like the Liberty bridge (nicknamed as Szabihíd in Hungarian) programme to be iconic and a widely known symbol of urban freedom.
The issue
There are only very few places in Budapest where you can tap into Danube’s water. Riversides here are used mainly for transportation and not for the inhabitants’ leisure activities. There are only few open and free public spaces in the city, where you can just hang out without having to buy something, where you enjoy a cultural programme or have fun doing sports. Since 2017, under the coordination Valyo Association, the Liberty bridge has been used on some summer weekends as such a public space, and has turned into one of the most popular venues in Budapest, which consciously forgoes catering. Given the many programmes, initiated by individuals, the Liberty bridge reaches out to a particularly wide range of audiences and involves them in a new way of how urban public space is used.
Activities and timeframe
We would like to open up the bridge for four weekends in July 2019 and make it available for pedestrians. The Municipality of Budapest has already made a positive decision about it. As in previous years, Valyo will act as a temporary “manager” of the area, providing basic infrastructure and ensuring that you can have fun under safe and organised circumstances.
We only coordinate the Liberty Bridge jamboree but you – including artists, hobby groups and city dwellers – bring the programmes. This year we would like to involve as many programmes initiated by the community and citizens of Ferencváros community as possible.
Envisaged project budget (types of costs and amounts/rates)
Infrastructural expenses of Szabihíd for 4 weekends: approx.. 1,750,000HUF
• Permissions: 70,000HUF
• Infrastructure (4X48 hours of medical emergency duty on both sides of the river, toilets, electricity, loudspeakers, cables, bands for marking, paint, etc., logistics, storage) 1,400,000HUF
• Dissemination of information (printing, installation, waste): 150,000HUF (this is the minimum budget for this item but we have many creative ideas if we have a higher amount for it)
• Provisions for volunteers at the location („Organiser” T-shirts, food, drink): 130,000HUF
How do you plan to use the funds raised through Swimathon?
We would like to raise at least 1,750,000HUF through Swimathon. We will use the funds mainly for the infrastructural expenses of the Szabihíd project, as well as information
What kind of impact do you wish to achieve and how do you plan to assess it?
Our long-term urban development goal is to make sure that the city’s leadership becomes more open with respect to the use of public space and to be able to organise Szabihíd in 2020 as well. We would also like to see other riverside areas made temporarily available for the people. In the medium term, successful examples of such use of public space will become integral to everyday life in Budapest.
To improve transport culture: to facilitate the civilized co-existence of cyclists and pedestrians. We hope to see fewer conflicts between cyclists and pedestrians on the bridge.
Active use of the public space: more initiatives and civil society organisations appearing at Szabihíd than in previous years. The number of events organised by local inhabitants: at least 4 sports/music/arts and 2 social events/weekend
Name and mission of the implementing organisation:
At the City and River (Valyo) Association we strive to make the Danube banks available for the people. To this end we organize community programmes, put on installations. Our previous projects connected to the 9th district include: Szabihíd, Danube educational trail 2011, benches at Nehru park, skateboard park under Petőfi bridge, Valyo Park by the river.
Organisational data
Name: Valyo (City and the River) Association
Address: 1085 Budapest, Mária utca 18. fszt. 1.
Court registration date: 2014.02.20.
Court registration number: 15.426.
Tax number: 18594971-1-42
Website: www.valyo.hu
Contact person: Cili Lohász
Contact information: [email protected], +36 20 546 9501