Budapest Crossings
Almost every major intersection in Budapest has a metro station underneath it. Rather than have pedestrians crossing over the street, they cross under. Walk down into the station from one side, come up from another. Railings on the sidewalk prevent people from walking into the street. I can see the advantages: better flow for cars not having to wait to make turns, people can cross the street, even diagonally without waiting. But I’m not writing about this because of how great it is. First off this is a problem for handicap people. No escalators and a lot of up/down stairs to cross the street. But here’s the real problem. In any given intersection, there are 8 possible openings. Each of the 4 corners has 2 directions. For some reason, I always ended up on the wrong side of the street or on the right side, but facing the wrong direction, so I’d have to go back down and reattempt another stairwell. Obviously if you know the name of the streets and know where you’re going, it should be simple. But literally, I messed up everytime. I never had such a hard time crossing the street. The same issue arises when actually taking the metro and exiting the station. I manage to always exit from the most inconvenient side. The good news is I only mess up once. After that, I know exactly where I’m going.
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