Streetscape and Public Transit in Central and Eastern Europe

    As someone who grew up in the U.S. South, I noticed a lot of really interesting things on my trip to Europe that is contrary to the typical city structure in U.S. cities. Throughout my trip, I visited Budapest, Hungary, Vienna, Austria, and Bratislava, Slovakia. I'm going to outline three large differences I noticed on my trip including public transit, streetscapes and bike lanes, & walkability and pedestrian roads. 

Pedestrian streets in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Public Transit

    The large difference of public transit is truly unmistakable. It doesn't take a landscape architect to know that the U.S. majorly struggles in this department. Coming from Birmingham, Alabama, this is especially evident. The extent of public transit is simply just an irregular bus that barely goes throughout the city, much less, connections to the outside of the city. In fact, the only time I've ever used public transit there was to take a bus from downtown Birmingham to the Atlanta airport. Even then, I wouldn't say that it was accessible form of travel available to the average person. However, in the European cities I visited, this was a stark contrast. In Budapest, we took a bus (essentially from right outside the door of we were staying) and then hopped directly onto the tram, and if we needed to get any further, the tram could take us right to the metro. The public transit in those cities is an essential for daily life, and most people (even if they have cars) decide its more reasonable to take the public transit instead. 

Streetscape in Vienna, Austria. 

    At the beginning of trip we had some difficulty figuring out the public transit system, mostly because all of the signage in Budapest was in Hungarian. This difficulty included riding the metro in the wrong direction for about 10 minutes and getting off of a bus a few stops too early. However, once we got the hang of it, we were good to go, and traveled pretty easily between all of the places we wanted to visit. 

    Scooters also were a highly used form of transportation (at least they were for us.) Though we have these scooters in a lot of U.S. cities, I have never really felt safe enough to zip along the sidewalk or street with cars speeding by. This comfortability was large in part due to the buffered bike lanes that exist in these cities. 

Streetscapes and Bike Lanes

    As I mentioned before, the bike lanes were everywhere, often separated from the road with a buffer of green space to protect the bikers and scooter riders from the cars and buses on the main road. There were very roads in the downtown with more than two lanes, and most of the time, the walking space was wider than the actual roads. The liveliness of the streets, the large amount of pedestrian interaction really heightened the feelings of safety and just made us appreciate the old buildings even more.

 

Bike lanes and large buffers in Vienna, Austria. 

Walkability and Large Pedestrian Roads

    I know that I've already talked a lot about just how walkable these cities were. Vienna, in particular, was extremely walkable. Budapest was a little bit more spread out, so we had to heavily rely on the public transit there. In Bratislava, the hills and changing elevations made walking possible, but a little bit exhausting. Vienna; however, was the easiest by a long shot. In fact, we really didn't use the public transit in Vienna much, but if you wanted to do this then you have to be willing to walk at least 10 miles a day to reach all of your tourist destinations (one day we walked 16 miles.) 

    Vienna had a large amount of full pedestrian roads and squares that made our lack of public transit use very possible. During our several day stay in Vienna, we never came across a single destination that we couldn't walk to. 

Pedestrian road in Vienna, Austria. 

Pedestrian road in Budapest, Hungary. 

    Every city we visited had pedestrian streets, and this made the whole experience of traveling much more enjoyable. Getting to see the city from walking is so much more valuable than just seeing it as you pass by in a car.

    Overall, the experience of traveling to eastern and central Europe was eye-opening for what is possible for city life when designed well. It evokes feelings of wonder that something like that actually exists, and feelings of annoyance that our American cities weren't built with the same intentions. If you ever get the chance to go, I highly recommend just taking a walk, and absorbing all that is around you.