Istanbul,
covering an area of 5.220 sq.km is an incredibly crowded and
complicated town. Inner city transportation is one of the
biggest problems. It does not matter whether you have a car or
not. You may not even find a place to park your car in certain
places and in certain hours. On the other hand if you don’t know
your destination it’s very easy to get lost. Don’t be confused!
Once you learn to deal with the town’s “unwritten rules” you’ll
have great pleasure. Moreover we are here to help you and to
ease your way of life.
With the lack of an elaborated city plan Istanbul changes face
quite fast. The city offers many traffic challenges to its
citizens.
For example a person living on the Anatolian side may work on
the European side or just the opposite. Therefore during the
rush hours the existing two bridges over the Bosphorus (Bosphorus
and Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridges respectively) and three bridges
over the Golden Horn are very crowded. Well at least you can
enjoy the panorama of both the Bosphorus and Golden Horn while
waiting in the terrific traffic!
The highways passing through both bridges are the main roads
connecting Europe to Asia and all International Road Transfers
(TIR) must use these highways. As a result, together with inner
city traffic you meet a very colorful range of vehicles causing
this confusion!
Well of course the bridges are not the only way of transport:
ferry (arabalý vapur), steamship (vapur), sea bus
(deniz otobüsü), motor boat (motor), metro (metro),
light metro (hafif metro) (only on the European side),
sub urban trains (banliyö treni), municipality bus (belediye
otobüsü), public bus (halk otobüsü), tunnel (tünel),
tram (tramvay), taxi (taksi), and public taxi (dolmuþ)
are the other alternatives. Nevertheless people still prefer the
bridges and we have yet to figure out why!!!
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