Rail Baltica at Riga Central Station

Rail Baltica infrastructure has been presented recently — including the looks of the Riga Central Station.

The complex construction of the Riga railway bridge, the embankment and the Riga Central Passenger Station will be carried out based on the chosen design solution. This is a sketch of the project for the station and the development of its surroundings created by PLH Arkitekter in cooperation with COWI (Denmark).

During the construction, two new 2.6 km long European gauge (1435 mm) tracks, 6 new railway lines, a new street along with the demolition of the existing embankment, in order to organize the rail traffic along the ramp, as well as a new 1 km long bridge over the river Daugava and small Daugava will be developed. There will be an opportunity to create passenger stops in Torņkalns and Mārupe for airport and railway station express shuttles (planned to depart every 15 minutes).

Along with the introduction of the European gauge railway in the center of Riga, the modernization of the railway will also create a modern, aesthetically attractive station infrastructure and a multimodal transport junction, increasing mobility, safety, accessibility and also giving Riga new features by visually and functionally connecting parts of the city separated by a railway embankment, as well as a new railway bridge connecting both banks of Daugava easily for pedestrians and cyclists.

On May 29, 2019, an agreement was signed on the design and construction of the most important Rail Baltica object in Latvia with the BESIX RERE GROUP, the association of designers and builders for the Rail Baltica Riga Central Passenger Station and Bridge, thus ensuring the development of construction projects in 2021.

Rail Baltica is a greenfield rail transport infrastructure project with a goal to integrate the Baltic States in the European rail network. The project includes five European Union countries – Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and indirectly also Finland. It will connect Helsinki, Tallinn, Pärnu, Riga, Panevežys, Kaunas, Vilnius, Warsaw. The Baltic part of the Rail Baltica project is referred to as the Rail Baltica Global Project.