This morning in an official ceremony Riga City Council representatives opened the Sarkandaugava overpass on the Riga–Skulte railway line, as well as the newly built Mangaļi–Sarkandaugava bicycle and pedestrian path. At 11:00, the Sarkandaugava flyover was opened to road users.
The construction of the Sarkandaugava flyover started in April 2020 and was finished last autumn. The length of the flyover without off-ramps is 454.4 meters. It consists of seven separate span structures in both directions and two connections, at Viestura Prospekts and at Tvaika Street.
“The Sarkandaugava flyover is part of the new Riga which we are building for both today and for future generations – a Riga with safer and more orderly traffic, in which we have room for everyone: cars, pedestrians and cyclists; a Riga in which traffic infrastructure helps to create a dynamic city. The Sarkandaugava flyover is one of the most ambitious new structures in traffic infrastructure in recent decades and, in combination with the Eastern motorway, is an important step in regulating traffic flows in Riga – both the flyover itself and the intersections and access roads constructed will greatly facilitate traffic; the movement of transport between Vecmilgrāvis and the centre of Riga will be faster, and access to the port will be more convenient for freight transport,” the deputy chairman of Riga City Council Vilnis Ķirsis said in his address.
Mr Ķirsis also indicated that the largest sum of funding in the city’s recent history is currently being invested in the restoration and development of Riga’s infrastructure. Taking all the projects as a whole, it comes to several hundred million euros – this includes both significant amounts of city resources and state co-financing and very significant investments from EU funds.
Meanwhile, Kaspars Ratkevičs, board member of the managing company AS LNK Industries, owned by the company Association of Individuals OTC, emphasized in his address that the Sarkandaugava flyover over the Riga–Skulte railway line is one of the most important infrastructure sites sold by the company in Riga, and will significantly relieve the city centre from congestion.
“A big challenge for the project was successfully integrating the newly built flyover into the already functioning urban infrastructure. An additional challenge was the organization of works in such a way that railway and tram traffic is not affected, taking into account that the zone is crossed by “Latvijas Dzelzceļš” (Latvian Railways), private railways and tram tracks. One of the most technically complex tasks was the construction of the only railway and tram track crossing in Latvia. Certain elements of this intersection were custom-made in the Czech Republic. A span over Viestura Prospekts held over the tracks of the Riga–Skulte line is worth noting in the flyover structure. Custom-made prestressed reinforced concrete beams that were concreted onsite were used in the flyover structure, Mr Ratkevičs noted.
As part of the flyover construction project, the Mangaļi-Sarkandaugava bicycle and pedestrian road was constructed, as well as the first tunnel in Riga with a division between space for pedestrian and for bicycle traffic. The construction of the flyover in Sarkandaugava was carried out by the partnership Association of Individuals OTC, in which three construction companies joined together: SIA Binders, AS LNK Industries and LT concrete. The total construction costs of the Sarkandaugava flyover amounted to EUR 44 million.
