TRANSPORT IN ISTANBUL

 

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!!!