Construction, Lithuania, Tourism, Transport

Balodis informed that the Riga City Council has started work on two projects related to Rail Baltica – construction of the multimodal transport hub in Tornakalns and reconstruction of Riga Central Market. Plans for other adjacent territories will be drawn up later when there is clarity about the adjacent territories affected by the Rail Baltica project and the solutions proposed for their development.

The multimodal transport hub will be built in an undeveloped Tornakalns territory between Vienibas Gatve Street and the railway. The EU Cohesion Fund has provided EUR 7 mln to this project, providing for the construction of a new regional coach terminal, a parking area and a passenger terminal. The local authority has so far allocated EUR 290,000 for drawing up the project’s technical plan.

Balodis said that the Tornakalns multimodal hub will serve as an alternative to the current coach terminal during the development of the Rail Baltica railway line, but that there have been no plans to move the coach terminal to Tornakalns for good. The Tornakalns multimodal hub is being planned as a regional coach terminal, while the question about the future location of Riga Central Coach Terminal has yet to be debated.

Riga Central Market’s revitalization is another project the Riga local authority plans to implement as part of Rail Baltica. The city council has provided EUR 290,000 also for this project’s technical plan.

In order to better prepare for the Rail Baltica project, the city council’s urban development department has started talks with the Transport Ministry on signing a memorandum, which among other things envisages forming an inter-institutional workgroup for Rail Baltica.

As reported, reconstruction of the Riga Central Railway Station will be held in line with the design by Danish architects - PLH Arkitekter A/S in cooperation with COWI A/S, said Agnis Driksna, the development and cooperation department director of Eiropas Dzelzcela Linijas, a company involved in Rail Baltica project.

The tender for the best design project was held from July 7 until November 7, 2016.

As reported, the planned complex reconstruction of the Riga Central Railway Station might cost nearly EUR 200 mln.

The Rail Baltica project seeks to re-establish a direct connection between the Baltic states and the European railway network. The project is expected to facilitate regional integration by means of a railway link from Helsinki that would link Tallinn, Riga, Kaunas, Warsaw and Berlin and might potentially be extended to Venice. The EU will help finance the project from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) for development of transport infrastructure.