What Bugs Budapesters?
A number of the newsagencies are reporting on a survey by Medián this morning on what daily gripes most annoy Budapesters (vg, privatbankar, mti, hirado). In brief it's the sight of scroungers, the homeless and the ever popular dog dirt. Clearly not much changes.
The city dwellers on average rated Budapest as a '4' for how good the place was to live. 2/3rds gave it either a 4 or a 5. In the past half year a good proportion of people believe that the city is developing quickly. For example, 3 out of 10 of those questioned in July believed the city was developing quickly compared to 2 out of 10 people back in Janauary.
According to the research most voters would choose Demszky Gábor for mayor (his current role) from the available candidates. Personally, since he doesn't live in the city I can't see why he would be a favorite, but that is probably due to the other candidates on offer. There's a pretty slimy interview with him "I do not give up", conducted by Andrew Princz (who also has his dissenters).
The public opinion poll also found that the air quality in Budapest was believed to have shown the most significant improvement since the early 1990s. However the public transport system (BKV) was without exception believed to have become comparatively slower than the 1990s. General crime was also believed to have eased somewhat (with the exception of traffic offences/crime which has risen since 2001).
Out of all of that I'm pretty surprised how lenient people seen to be being about the state of transition Budapest has had to put up with. We've had years of road works (last year the potholes, this year the trams, bridges being closed...) and despite all the public transport available the gridlock/jams are getting bigger and better. A typical headline from today is 'Almighty gridlock on the bridges' ('Hatalmas dugók a budapesti hidakon')
So, that's your word for today 'dugó', that is 'traffic jam or gridlock'. Dropping this into a conversation will get you a lot of sympathy with your fellow sufferers. Just make sure it's clear you are talking about the traffic as the word can have other less salubrious meanings (particularly in polite company).
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