A car is often considered a status symbol in Latvia. Due to the underdevelopment of transit and cycling infrastructure, it reinforces the prevailing mentality of driving everywhere. Restrictions on driving are seen as an infringement on the freedom of travel. The only way to break the status quo is to provide high-quality transit and cycling infrastructure, give people a choice and not force them to drive.
Recognizing the Soviet occupation limited Latvian‘s “freedom” in many ways for decades, its understandable that they would hold onto something that gives them a *sense of freedom* they were missing. If they are still like they were in the 90’s, money talks louder than anything! I imagine that if money came in to redevelop many of buildings along these streets, IF the city would re prioritize non-car movements along them, you’d see some real progress. As an American, I’d love to participate in this revitalization, but in a way that my foreign money & assistance would ensure that the local residents, especially those renting or without these resources, get to benefit from this influx of money, while making a fair return on our investment. If this seems even remotely of interest, LMK & we can connect. Many urbanism RUclipsrs prefer to make videos about the problems & issues than to participate in the revitalization, so if this is you, no worries.
Soviet era made too many mistakes in Rīga. Bridge wrongly built, Centeal station and area destroyed, River bankndestroyed, no transit routes, no highways outside Rig. Piblic transport is quite good, except no fast routes to suburba@@MrNeomidis
@@MrsUnderwriter they built in the same style as the rest of Europe at the time. Just look at Rotterdam post ww2 or other big cities which were largely destroyed during ww2 and had to be rebuilt.
@@ttopero oh no please don't. Latvian housing is relatively affordable still because post 2008 crash the influx of foreign money pretty much ended. The main Riga issue I see as a resident is underinvestment in the existing infrastructure - you can see it everywhere, crumbling bridges, sidewalks, holes and patches on the roads everywhere. Even places they resurface, start to fall apart after several years of use. I lived on the Island of Kipsala between Daugava river banks and saw first hand the slow decline - a small pedestrian bridge closed indefinitely because it became unsafe to walk on, Vansu bridge pedestrian path narrowed further and further with temporary barrier because the pavement started to cave in. I suspect the reason for this is bad tax policy - money get sucked out the Riga area which generates around 70% of country GDP to small towns outside of the capital. Those small towns almost always look better and has better infra than Riga.
At the very least Riga is finally trying to improve its public transport again.. In Vilnius we are still waiting for someone in the municipality office to realise that being stuffed into buses isn’t the way forward to drive ridership😅 Even while Vilnius is growing in population!
Half the trolley's are held together by beer and duck tape, or what feels like it and the infrastructure makes them take ages to get where you need them.
Living in Riga, came from Texas. I come from massively car dependant place that makes Riga passible, though I know it still can be better. I can imagine this place with great walkable, cycling and public transportation infrastructure
@@RandyOrloka lot of people would never want to move to the usa in contrast to you, it's simply not attractive for many. Many would not want to lose the safety considering that latvia is a very safe country. Actually many people would like to live in the north of Sweden inspired by jonna jinton. Or a similar place in latvia, estonia or elsewhere
@@dreamthedream8929 also many people would not like to live in north of sweden , and many people dont know about "jonna jinton". understand? maybe dont answer for "many people"
Absolutely wonderful and a very well educated video! You're bound to explode in the urbanist side of youtube and I can't wait for more people to see your work. People like you are bringing the us back together to fight for a great cause. Thank you.
This video maker completely missed point why people leave Riga. Its the wanting to own a Car. to be free to travel around country etc. I moved out and almost everyone i work with. now we have our own homes with land People dont want to live in a Pod eating bugs and being consumers who rent and spend everything on consumer goods and subscribtions. People understand that when they become 35+ years old. All the recent Modern EUropean choices in last 10 months to ruin infrastructure with grand progressive leftist views accelerated the people moving out of Riga. No one wants to sit in traffic for hours just because some dumb politican decided to ruin half the streets with useless bicycle lines that no one uses 8 months out of 12.
Its quite funny how people like this dont grasp reality because they are inexperienced 20 year olds who smelled farts of some grand teachers in university and now think they know how to fix everything but they have zero life experience.
@@gunitapiterane5473 the authors of this very dense video did not understand 2 very big differences in Riga - the large width of the Daugava and other situations in winter. The large width means that historically river crossings have been possible in far fewer places than in cities with narrow rivers/canals. Now, in January 2024, we can assess the real possibilities for cycling.
Videos like these should be taken serioud by the city. The city has a lot of problems, one of them - not looking for an example of foreign countries where the green and futurus planning is priority. Great video! You should make a video about Latvia's roads, for example the so called highways has 2 lanes instead of 4 which makes the highway more safe. There are a lot for the institutions to finally listen and take needed action.
As a guy living in Riga, I can confirm that our infrastructure is very bad. The only great thing is the Rail Baltica project but nothing else. Riga city council needs more young people.
@@dreamthedream8929 Well, many roads are full of potholes, some places don’t even have sidewalks, and some places are also dangerous. That's why Riga has a high death rate on roads. Also public transport- the tram lines are so dirty, that they create a sandstorm, buses always get stuck in traffic and the connection from the city centre to the airport is so bad.
Thank you for the video! I have contacts in DM's with the current Rīga vicemayor who is a very open to the public guy and I sent this video to him, he will 100% see this video, thank you alot for the video and I hope he forwards this video to the right authorities to see their bad planning! New subcriber to you sir!
Telling former Soviet countries to make desirable urban planning infrastructure compared to our Dutch infrastructure is a heavy task and it will come with a lot of resistance. But eventually i hope Latvia get its act together and make more dense desirable places for its people.
Thank you for the wise words. We have pretty decent public intercity and city transport network, but those with better paid jobs often have arbitrary locations of work too complicated to reach and thus banally incentified to use cars. Not only this lazy, costly (if time-saving) mentality is a burden on Riga, the city simply was not designed for so many cars in Soviet times, never mind the old town in medieval period. Now it's a really high and painfully slow task to redesign it. Especially without nevessary experience and progressive, open human-oriented mindset, leading to expensive mistakes like the Southern "golden" bridge. Note, the rest of our cities are not as plagued by cars and pollution, Riga is the scariest place to drive or ride here. Other problems are ex.g. an order of magnitude smaller budget (just a guess, having stayed in Amsterdam and Roterdam), just recently curbed systematic corruption in city council, nepotism and.. Main thing, a similar progressive humanist mindset that i've seen among the Dutch institutions. Sometimes i feel the project planners should be thought organic city design and even things like feng-shui, as we have some brilliant architects, but often ugly outcomes. If this doesn't work, where possible should just copy you))
@@dannydetonatorin amsterdam they don't cut the grass like in riga, in riga it's cut flat while in Amsterdam it's left in its natural state growing tall with a lot of flowers. In parks and elsewhere.
Great video. I'm British and never been to Riga, although I have visited other Eastern European countries (Ukraine and Slovenia). Riga looks like it has huge potential to be amazing but seems like they're unfortunately making mistakes they don't need to make. I do agree that making streets for people again would be a great move, however I feel like there's more to the problem than just that. There has to be economic factors involved, and I suspect the planning/zoning system probably also needs reform to. The most worrying thing in your video is not the lack of bike lanes, but those new suburban developments and retail parks that look like they could be in the U.S.A. Latvia...PLEASE don't do this! It'll be VERY hard to fix that. Much harder than retrofitting bike lanes in.
Riga is doing well compared to Tallinn where cycling lanes were built unseperated by the roads, they are narrow and some of them are in the middle of the road in viaducts, you will probably get injured cycling these red cycle lanes😵💫
Really appreciate the work that you have put, especially all the archival footage - thank you! Riga is indeed still suffering from mistakes of the past, however, it is inexcusable that those mistakes are being repeated today. Changes are incremental and unfortunately the majority of the public is so used to car-centric planning that there is a great deal of pushback toward any proposals to reduce the flow of motor traffic. I really hope that Riga can turn the trend around, because it really is a fantastic city!
Good video. Saddly this situation is not uniqe to Riga alone, but in all around Latvia. Many documents and plans are ignored or not observed intentionally. Also many construction business are involved in stealing money and construction materials.
Firstly, what a great chanel with a similar vibe to not just bikes. Secondly, as a person from Latvia it is great to see the problems with infrastructure and the possible improvements in our country. Very informative as well. Thank you.
Interesting video. I visited Riga this summer and despite I mostly visited the inner city, I immediately detected the city was very car orientated. My hotel was near a place with driving schools, and there was lots of activity with students learning to drive a car in this area. The potential to place living areas, houses cafés and so near the river is so huge as I did not see a lot of activity on the river after the ferry terminals and the low bridges. In other livable cities the area near the river has a lot of value, but this was mostly empty in Riga, or at least part of the side on the northern side had a highway next to it. It will be interesting to see if Rail Baltica will change something in Riga and may turn things around. If one is smart, invest in plot of lands near the river and see this land increase its value in one or two decades if Riga makes a turnaround in its city planning.
I fully agree with all the points made, particularly the observation about people from Soviet-era neighborhoods not even considering moving to the city center. When I was searching for a new place some years ago, I never once thought, "The city center is the best option!", even though technically in my line of work... it should be? 🙃
One thing I gotta say, I love the effort you put into this video and when pronouncing Latvian words didn't feel like nails on a chaulk board as it usually does when someone other than a Latvian trIes to say them. And also, it reinforced some believes about how things operated back in my home country and as well I learned some new stuff about it, mainly that we produced Fords in the day :D But that said, there are a lot of issues with wanting Latvia to develop Riga like the Netherlands does with their towns and cities. FIrst most it's the attitudes of people and people much themselves, there is a lot of "soviet era stuborness" to be found and trying to make these people go a completely different way that is used to them is nigh impossible, and two, generally, people want to be out of the cities, often mentioned that Latvians are people of the country side and want to be away from the dense city sprawl, and with how depressed most people are, most won't want to be told where they have to live if they want to work in Riga.
Es biju par mašīnām Rīgā, tu man iedevi jaunu perspektīvu uz šo visu. Var redzēt, ka ieguldīji ļoti daudz laika video izveidē. Malacis, tā tik turpini 💪💪💪
Woow! Your video is amazing! A clear, educated look on Latvian reality. Living inside it, its often easy to forget that there are other different perspectives. Keep making videos, man! =)
Riga has one of the most expensive parking in the world in comparison to income, which has lead to reduced economic activity. I think it was a mistake, because no alternative for personal transport was created. Public transport won't work for everyone and a lot of people hate it for being dirty, cold, no seats for everyone. In a country with minus 0 to 20 Celsius degrees nine months in a year, alternatives must be close to perfect. Heated bike lanes everywhere are the only solution, really.
I lived in Spain and enjoyed waking trough the city and had no car for the family. We bought a car before returning to Latvia and it's not because we don't like walking or bicycles. Car equals speed and quite often traveling long distances is not convenient with a bike. And sorry but not everyone lives, wants or can live in the city Center so pretty understandable why car lanes are the priority. Comparing Rīga to Netherlands? Check the weather sir. It's 4-5 months of normal weather here. Car makes all the sense. Also when the weather is good I still don't use a bike as I do not enjoy getting sweaty every time I need to get somewhere to work. Also I don't enjoy carrying shopping bags with my bike.
The guy has some good points but he’s too much of a zoomer hipster who’s too much into bikes. Our weather is not the same as the Netherlands. We are also not as big as Texas. So we need bike lanes trough the city but not too many as well. The traffic is too much already (I know the opposite talking points)… I won;t eat ze bugzz and in the future I want my own house, few acres of land and I want/need to get to Riga for business.
Now I agree with some of your points, but an excuse not to have buses is just bad, cause they are 14x better than cars and the new buses that are used the most are H2 powered so they don't make any emissions. I live next to a road that had about 30 old preserved trees cut down just for a bike lane that no one uses. In my opinion, the biggest problem with the bridge up north is that there are almost no one going to drive. Don't always focus on the negatives. With the public transport again, if we used public transport more and none of those people that don't buy tickets did buy the tickets then maybe, cause they use the tickets bought to make buses more frequent or not.
As a recent bike owner, I can say that bike infrostructure is not the best, but its livable. Still.. I would not want to drive on the road because often sides have debri and holes and driving in the middle in my eyes is suicide seeing how some people drive and my still lacking expierience. Planning is bit weird you might have bike lanes randomly ending into nothingness but many pavements and sides are at least slanted down without step next to them, so it do assist biking. In past years I am seeing more bikes around so at least trend is going up. One big advantage is also public transport what is quite good for my personal needs, but I am sure there are many things to improve. There indeed is potential here, its sad to see so many abandoned buildings and places in bad shape only going worse. Hope some things do improve, I am personally also living in soviet time 'hruscovka', but despite their age and appearance, I still see them as quite appealing, mostly because of loads of space near the buildings, what at least in my particular case is still mostly filled with trees and grass and not parking lots.
This is a great video, thank you for highlighting Riga’s car centric mentality. As an expat living in the centre (owning a bike not a car!) I find it so frustrating the lack for infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists. Every day is battle against fumes and noise.
Thank You for video. I personally hold an opinion that there should be more cycling infrastructure in my native Riga. I only remember late 1980 since I was born in Riga in 1983. There were much less cars. Now the traffic is all swollen up too much. I think it should be limited to some degree. Maybe with allowing only city residents to commute with their personal cars and entrance fee for non-residents like it is in Jūrmala. The later be offered to use car sharing with dedicated car sharing parking places.
I am sadly a driver. Purely because there is no other option. Even public transit is awful where I live because in order to get from one place to another I need to go either through the city center by bus or cycle on awful and dangerous roads. I know Latvians are people who usually sit there and do nothing because they feel like no one will listen to their opinion, but why are so many of us so careless about this? I know its easier to sit there and do nothing and just get away as soon as possible, but is no one ready to atleast try to fix everything that is wrong with the city? We have good planners and designers as proven by the visualisations in this video, but why are they not implemented properly? Ofc, the answer is money and politics, but when are we finally gonna stand up together and protest this very soviet way of thinking?
Good video and great insight into a problem, but one issue is economics - we dont have money for all of these projects. One side thing not mentioned, that most of high paying jobs are in capital and people want to remain living where they are (outside Riga) and get good wage. Speaking of economics - we are leaps and bounds poorer than Netherlands and cannot afford to construct and maintain all this greenery (as much as I would want to see that as I have been there). About Netherlands - in few places there is cyclists first, but have 0 infrastructure for pedestrians. As pedestrian you need to be careful and look behind your shoulder so cyclist doesnt run you over (happened bunch of times with me), so wouldnt say thats totally safe way of transportation, but better than what we have
We absolutely have the money for good cycling infrastructure and greenery. We can afford to build new stretches of highways for millions but can not build one street with proper cycling infrastructure.
@@streetscaping yes and no. Greenery is not just planting and leaving them to grow, they need to be groomed. So there is also high upkeep cost to have good greenery. I agree that most of high cost projects are dumb. Especially we didnt need national library in middle of city
Very interesting video. I'd wish you could do my hometown of Ventspils, because while the city itself is much smaller in terms of amount of people and space, there are still way too many cars roaming around per capita, mostly due to crappy underdeveloped public transport system. Recent corruption scandals and general air pollution due to sea port and related commerce proximity also further worsens the issue.
@@whatsupbudbud depends on what you compare with. If you compare with netherlands, or Spain where cities are built with bikes in mind - there is no comparison. Pedestrian paths are far too narrow alot of time here even for pedestrians, but then again there arent many people living here in Ventspils (around 35k by official records)
@@dimen363 Spain is not the best bike-friendly place in the world, mind you. And the climate also not forgiving to cycling much the same as ours in LV.
@@whatsupbudbud wym, i’ve recently been to Spain, Valencia. The coldest weather during the year over there is around 10 C with not many rains compared to Latvia, and dedicated bycicle lanes over there are abundant and wide, same goes for pedestrian lanes. During three weeks ive been there I havent encountered any rush hours, compared to Riga where the traffic in and around the center hardly moves during peak hours. Mind you i was staying almost at the city centre in Valencia. There is literally no comparison between the two in terms of bycicle use and related infrastructure availability.
Well it certainly doesn’t feel this way. Tallinn, much like Riga, is governed by party that can stay in power purely thanks to Russian minority votes. So the city government is dominated by people who are often corrupt, carbrained, soviet-minded or just plain incompetent. High status in the party gets you a more important position, even when you are totally unqualified (Andrei Novikov comes to mind). They are never held accountable for their actions and their power is uncontested, so there is no incentive to change anything. Bike paths in the city centre are a travesty, public transportation network is barely staying relevant and needs update badly, pedestrian infrastructure is not cleaned of snow and so on. There are small improvements, but improvements are only made when they don’t impact car traffic. @@streetscaping
Nice video. Though me as As someone somewhere in the education system chain, i fear they're probably going to take money away from education, again. 😵💫
Very good video. I live in Mezaparks and Brasas bridge is a nightmare and I truly hate that thing. I don't understand why you had to have those barriers and wide lanes. As an alternative, they didn't even need to put cycling road on the bridge, there is perfectly fine place right next to the bridge on the street level , there is a road that was used previously while bridge was in construction. Yes, it crosses the railroad, but currently as I have observed, every cyclist is using that path anyway, instead of riding that stupid bridge. Current cycling path is not straight, you have to cross street before bridge , and then once more after the bridge. it has sharp turns coming down the bridge. Overall its a zigzag mess , and clearly none of the politicians own a bike.
If you live in Mežaparks that may mean that you have a lot of money and are wealthy. Mežaparks is supposed to be the wealthiest neighborhood of rīga. The historic houses and the land there are not cheap. Many people that live in Mežaparks probably have their own business, various companies that allow them to sustain this kind of living. I would suspect that you may meet many multimillionaires there. Rich families living there
@@dreamthedream8929 im earning money, but nowhere close to be wealthy :D but what it has to do with this video? you are saying that rich people dont ride bicycles?
@@kristapszs1 with the video not so much but more with your comment and the part of the city in which you reside. It is known as the wealthiest part of the city. Many rich families reside there. Expensive cars and also probably expensive bicycles. The houses there look great as old architecture does
While I appreciate the nuanced take, don't you think the biggest contributor to people leaving Riga after 1990 was the same as people leaving Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in general? 1 - many muscovites moved to russia after the collapse of USSR, 2 - borders opened, so people flooded to Western Europe and the US. It's not like Latvia's population grew in that period and only poorly designed Riga declined.
Yes, I did mention that repatriation and emigration to other countries were prevalent during the 90s. That being said, the argument about poorly planned Riga being the reason for the population decline is more applicable to the 21st century.
@@streetscaping Thanks for the response. Well in the 21st century at least 200k Latvians left after joining the EU in '04, so it is difficult for a city to grow when the country loses 10% of its population. This situation is interesting though, as Vilnius is having the exact same issues with transportation. Suburbia is sprawling, and yet the city itself is also increasing in population. I thought with Riga the growth would be even larger than Vilnius because there are no other larger industrial centers in Latvia. The country essentially has one city.
@@kristupasbitlierius7017first off large industrial center does not equal a city, there are several cities in latvia and secondly now the main reason for decreasing population in rīga is that people move to smaller towns or countryside. They wanna live closer to nature. That's a good reason.
They've poured new concrete on the A7 near my familiy's home near the border of Riga and it has actually increased the commute time to the city by like 15 minutes cause you can't turn in towards the city without doing a giant loop.
The large scale demolition started even before the soviets You might want to look into Ulmaņa Plans for the city you can see traces of it in the oldtown around current ocopation museum and Freedom Monument. And Finance ministry whilst at least it kept a neo-classical outward appearance did demolish many building in the oldtown...
@@streetscaping Just pointing It out as it's often overlooked. If his whole plan would have been implemented there would not be much of an oldtown to speak of. But as it stand the Soviets do to take the cake could say that Riga got off reletivly lucky seeing what they did to towns like Kõnigsberg Current Kalingrad and not to mention plenty of russian tsarist cities that are now essentially whipped off the map.
Is there a comparable city weather-wise that has similar amount of cyclists as AMS or CPH? Because I've lived in DK and their weather is perfect for cycling while here in Latvia winter is just terrible for that. And if you have kids, then it's a whole different ordeal without a car. So what say you?
In Latvia, no one adopts the new patterns from Western Europe, and they continue to wallow in such nightmares. 11:55 Latvia has ordered 30 sets of regional trains from Skoda, and in each of these trains, with 400 seats each, there is NO SPACES FOR TRANSPORTING BIKES AT ALL! The situation will eventually force us to get space for bicycles on these trains, but this will require a new amount of millions of euros. In this way, financial resources are wasted on things that shouldn't happen, instead of being used for further progress.
Over 9million Euros not traceable....hmmm? I wonder whose pockets it somehow fell into...accidentally, of course. No one would EVER wish to rip off the people of Latvia, Im sure.
The city smells like a Volkswagen and it takes only 1/3 - 1/2 the time to use public transport than to walk, at which point it's often faster to ride a scooter through crowded sidewalks.
Daud kam pēc būtības var piekrist, bet ir dažas nepilnības - par Brasas tilta izgāšanos nav jāvaino dome, bet gan vietējie ''aktīvisti'', Čaka iela bardaks arī ir ''aktīvistu'' nopelns. Krasta ielā ir divu joslu veloceļš katrā pusē, tur īsti neredzu pamatu piesietes. Bet kopumā doma ir pareizajā virzienā
I'm from Riga. WTF u saying ... People are leaving Riga not because infrastructure..There are many economic problems in this country and the government only sucks all the money out of the people, killing the future of this country.
For some context, we had a terrible mayor for 10 years who focused solely on the Russian audience and neglected the city entirely. During his tenure, Riga lost significant money due to corruption. Only when he was replaced by someone who truly cared did the city start to improve in recent years. Let's hope this positive trend continues after the 2025 mayor election, though there’s concern that someone similar to the previous terrible mayor is attempting to take over again.
And whers metro project ? Inportant part of history,....never releazed, but could be helpful.....but latvians afraid....protesting.....Today no money for metro only traffic jums. Could get some benefit from Soviet Times : ))
Nice video, but your forgetting that people usually don't tend to cycle in winter, you cant really compare Latvia where snow is common sight in winter with Amsterdam where snow is tragedy. So why make expensive dedicated infrastructure when its going to stay unused 1/4 of year? And don't get me started about helmets.
People do cycle during winter. They would cycle more if there were a safe space to do it. Norway, Sweden, Finland has snow too, yet cycling doesn't stop because of it.
If something has been stinking in your apartment for 50 years, do you think that when you open the windows, the smell will disappear like a snap of a finger?
Grūti šo uztvert nopietni, ja jau sākumā sāk ar maldinošiem faktiem. Latvijā iedzīvotāju skaits no 1990 gada arī ir samazinājies par 30%, līdz ar to relatīvi pret kopējo iedzīvotāju skaitu Rīgas iedzīvotāju skaits ir stabils.
Un tas attaisno izšķērdēt naudu nekvalitatīvos projektos tikai tāpēc, ka politiķi dēļ savas stulbās karjeras un siltās vietiņas baidās pieņemt drosmīgus lēmumus?
Velo infrastruktūras izveide, protams, ir forši, taču tā neatrisinās problēmas. Paskatieties pa logu, un sapratīsiet, kādēļ. Arī pieminētā Rail Baltica no Acones, Preču-2 un Vagonu parka līdz centram baigās masas neatvedīs, jo tur tādas vienkārši nedzīvo. Te būtu jāraugās metro virzienā, tā ir jēdzīga alternatīva transporta aizvākšanai no virszemes jebkuros laikapstākļos. Papildus visam jābūt mazāk saudzīgiem pret kultūrvēsturiskā mantojuma saglabāšanu - jaunas piecstāvenes perifērijas pļavā ir nopietns konkurents veco māju atjaunošanai tieši izmaksu ziņā.
Suburbs are an American idea that had long been looked down upon by the upper echelons of the cultural Left. They don't like cars, glorify European lifestyles (fine, within limits), dislike the conformity of the suburbs, and believing they themselves are better or correct, would like to ration gas, electricity, and certain foods in order to achieve climate goals. Really, it's a class war. Climate, a certain take on urbanism, and a diverse society have nothing to do with it.
@@RigaGid Aha. And yet somehow the GDP per capita of Latvia in 1939 was somehow higher then it was for most of the occupation. Not to mention, maybe it would have been better for us to build European infrastructure ourselves instead of have backwards commie one forced on us?
Very interesting. I have lived in S.E. Asia over the last 15 years. I often say "Once you buy a car, you will never go back to bus, tram, motorbike or bicycle. Cars are the devil. Best wishes from Bangkok.
This is a very informative video and will educate many. Leaving Riga - does it account for the reduced population in the entire nation and the emigration of minorities to neighboring countries, you mentioned it later but not in the intro. People moving outside of Riga is also largely because of cost. There was an infamous case of a supermarket employee having to sleep in a stairwell of a nearby building due to unaffordable rent. The facades of buildings not being repaired is not something that can be attributed to traffic. There is a common demographic pattern of poor elderly people living in such houses who are too burdened financially to be able to afford renovation. Lack of investment is true, but again, with the high costs of Riga, it's an additional factor. Don't skip the war, there are still war torn buildings to this day. A huge amount of capital also fled the country to the west, including USA, Germany, Sweden and the UK. The historical videos are well found and relevant, and the changes during the occupation left a lot to be desired. Meanwhile, cobblestone roads, while historical, are often a nightmare to walk, ride a bicycle on or drive on. Something that we don't and shouldn't see the same way as people from the past - gasoline/petrol was absurdly cheap back then. A large problem with cycling is the risk of death due to the driving culture. Brasa bridge should be cancelled. As for the public transport, let's add some detail as to why people choose not to use it. First of all, the poor design began also in the Soviet era, with many of the bus stops being fairly inconvenient or just far from their actual destinations. (If you feel like they are not bad, try a better city where the buses are where you actually need them.) Next, until a few years ago with timed tickets, the prices encouraged you to only ride a single bus/tram/trolleybus, which for most people meant that going "slightly to the right" either meant a) walking for 10+ minutes or b) paying double. On top of these two factors, most of the routes go from X to the center of the city. Meaning that if you need to go to the district next to you, you are probably going to go to center and then come back. Then there is the culture of public buses, with drunks, loudness and excessive amount of people during busy times. Multiply that by the amount of old buses and trams and you get an experience most people chose to evade. Not just people living in a private home in a sprawl, but people living in a high rise building at the edge of the city. So why not buy new transportation? If you did that, you might just run into the biggest theft scandal. Which leads to the problem of corruption, that is mentioned in the video. However, with the unplanned haphazard transition to a capitalist economy with the influence of criminal organizations and foreign governments, it is surprising that any progress has been made at all. Finally, if we talk about inter-city level travel (since Riga is expensive), the amount of inconvenience has for a long time been an indication of complete lack of understanding of modern people's needs. Connecting between different modes of transportation has been a joke. The least inconvenient maybe was the train station which has somewhat close access to buses but even that's generous. Next, the intercity buses stop a good quarter mile away from the rest of the transportation. It's almost like people coming from other cities are supposed to just sightsee and not get to a destination *unless they use a car and skip all of that*. Near the airport, the bus stop was conveniently placed at a place that didn't even have pavement connecting it to the airport. As for the connection between buses and ferry the answer is simply "no". Factoring in the demographics and poor state of alternatives, I can't say that there was any other way. It is the symptom not the pure cause. Of course with better education and understanding, people could have averted many of these issues and probably made every one of these pain points a little less bad, resulting in a cumulative effect. So to me, this is more of an advertisement of what we could have if we solve the underlying social issues. One part that I didn't see was about the current developments and changes. There are good parts, but I will highlight the poor ones as it's the theme: walking in the area around the markets and the new train station has been a farce. The many roadworks have crippled all forms of traffic. On top of that, the reduced speed limits, parking spaces and drivability has decreased accessibility since it is not matched by a qualitative alternative. Having spent time in more places around the world I will say though that the absolute focus on 'bicycles' is a bit of a cosplay. It seems like Europeans are 'too good' for mopeds, since if you look at the traffic density, they are basically the same as bicycles while having several benefits that allow them to be used as well as cars, such as long range, higher speed and low noise. And I am talking about electric mopeds, ones that do not even require lithium batteries. Given the high costs of quality bicycles, you might even have a cheaper electric moped as an option. I am considering if I need to make a video about the context of cars and alternatives in Latvia, the politics and geopolitics of it.
I've been searching for a long time for a documentary to introduce my parents to this issue. Your objective an unagressive storytelling makes this video ideal👍🏻 Thank you!
Liels paldies! Used to live in Riga and cycle to school, across Vanšu tilts 2010-2013 (our old flat is featured in the video :), never realised then how risky it was. I've got to admit, every time I've gone back in the last couple years I thought there were a few improvements, but I guess I've only really paid attention to façade restorations in the city centre... Here's hoping future admins take more steps forward than back and act transparently.
Bad planning is secondary at best. The number one problem Riga has is the cost. The rapidly aging demographic is a nationwide problem so I will exclude it from my comment. Mortgage for a house within 30 minute driving distance with a car is cheaper than rent of a ~40m^2 apartment in the city. Us Latvians also prefer to have more distance between one another than others so both financially and culturally we're incentivized to move to outskirts of the city if we can afford it. Now you pair the aforementioned with bad planning and any potential convenience of living in the city proper can not compete with the concept of owning your own home in the city's outskirts. I don't necessarily view this as a bad thing either, since suburbanization in Riga is not even remotely comparable to suburbanization in USA for example(plain residential areas don't really exist - they morph into small villages and towns which have their own micro economies). For the city to have a resurgence it needs actual people living in it - it needs to become at least a competitive alternative for locals financially. I don't want to be overly pessimistic but no amount of improved city planning will fix it by itself.
I loved this deep dive into a place with which I am unfamiliar! I learned a lot and it gave me some great ideas for improving my own car-dependent city! Thanks for this!
Riga resident here. Yes, we have problems and the more they are highlighted, the better. But you've also cherry picked the bad and the ugly. The city has an extensive and affordable transit network. I live 4 km from the centre and have easy access to buses and commuter trains, and in summer I cycle everywhere - you can ride on the sidewalks, which are quite wide and are an ok substitute for bike lanes. As for the centre, loads of people live there, and while yes there are a few abandoned buildings, the amount of restoration in the last 30 years is incredible. We have plenty of strengths to focus on to improve further.
@@streetscaping Now, can you give some details why you think the public transport is bad? We have trams, trolleybuses, buses and commuter trains. The network reaches everywhere in the city. A monthly ticket for unlimited trips is 30 euros - 1 euro per day. The vehicles and infrastructure are being constantly improved. I know lots of people who very happily live and work in Riga without a car. It's really easy - you walk, bike or ride the transit, and sometimes get a Bolt taxi. About the population. Latvia's population as a whole has significantly declined, due to a very low birth rate and net emigration. That's a long story, but it has obviously affected Riga too. The city centre is very lively, with bars, restaurants, offices, shops, and loads of apartments. Yea, there's a few derelict buildings, along with hundreds and hundreds which have been beautifully restored. Some centre neighbourhoods are very posh - the residents choose to live there, although they could easily afford to live somewhere else. Yes, some percentage of people move to the suburbs and live a car-centred life. Considering anyone over 40 spent time in Soviet communal apartments or tiny flats in the high rise estates, the desire for space is understandable. I live in Riga. What is your expertise on the subject? When did you last visit the city and how long did you stay? Because your video is crap - it doesn't take much intelligence to chuck together some ugly photos and do a hatchet job.
@@philipbirzulis5099 To the point of public transport, technically you're right that it reaches everywhere in the city, but there are many routes that are badly optimized. For example, there is a woman I know who lives in Ziepniekkalns, but works in Jaunmārupe, the route from her home to the workplace is about 7-8 km, but she has to take trolleybus to the center, and then transfer to another bus (because riding a bike on a 90km/h highway is terrifying, and the bus stop for buses 10 or 55 is far away) , which means she has to spend more than half an hour on a route that shouldn't take more than 15 minutes. There are other annoyances that just make public transport undesirable, for example 56th bus, that has a route so long, that it just never arrives on time, and wastes a lot of time going in circles in basically every neighborhood it comes through, or the fact that some transport with similar route arriving at very similar times, with huge gaps between arrivals, I believe 44th and 46th buses have that problem, where they differ by like 5-10 minutes, and then you need to wait for 30 more minutes if you missed both of them. My point is, I think we are definitely in a relatively good place in terms of availability of PT, but there are lots of things that could be improved. P.S. Also it's very annoying that you can't rely on PT for very important appointments. I've missed 2 dentist appointments and 1 work meeting just because the bus I needed didn't arrive in time, and they didn't send another one until it was too late. At the very least now you can see locations of the buses in Rīgas Satiksme app, but it's very clunky.
Riga resident here. Your video has some good points, however I cannot but to criticize your main takeaway that bike lanes would solve most issues. Riga is a city which is commuted to due to the country having barely any economic opportunities outside of its capital. This is contrary to e.g. Germany or the Netherlands which have many economic centres, lowering the need to commute. As such, cycling is not possible to be the main mode of transportation in Riga. More important is a good network of public transport within Riga but also connecting Riga with suburbs and other cities within the country. In no case should a bus lane be sacrificed for a bike lane, as you suggested. Public transport within Riga is good, although too focused on buses and trolley-buses which can get stuck in traffic. The commuting trains are currently being improved however the network needs higher electrification and more tracks to allow for more commuters to reduce the usage of their cars. Parking spots in Riga are currently not too many and the prices for monthly tickets are amongst the most expensive in the entirety of Europe (parking for residents is less than a 10th of the price in Berlin). What is needed is more underground parking to free up space on the surface, although this is difficult to achieve due to the small amount of houses being built from scratch. The need to transit large parts of the city requires for a good street network, however due to improper layout, many lanes are not used efficiently and cars need to change lanes often. More efficient planning for car infrastructure could increase its overall capacity whilst reducing the required space. A large factor too are the constant road repairs due to them being executed incredibly cheaply, leaving the road damaged only shortly after its completion. What I found especially off-putting in this video, is your framing of mandating helmets as anti-cyclist. This is like saying seat belts are anti-motorist. Helmets are a safety feature and it is only sane to use them, especially when sharing lanes with cars where Latvian drivers rarely keep a distance greater than 30cm.
100% agree on that, cycling is a very nice option to go around the neighborhood to get groceries, but it's not a solution to all the transporting issues, and PT lanes are way more important.
Vilnius has far better planning practices than Riga, especially the new cycling infrastructure. If anything, it would be a video about how Vilnius is a great example for Riga to follow!
Tallinn, Estonia next please!!! We have the same problems although we have bicycle infrastructure and better PT. But still... our mayor drives each day 7-9km to work although there is a perfectly working BRT.
A car is often considered a status symbol in Latvia. Due to the underdevelopment of transit and cycling infrastructure, it reinforces the prevailing mentality of driving everywhere. Restrictions on driving are seen as an infringement on the freedom of travel. The only way to break the status quo is to provide high-quality transit and cycling infrastructure, give people a choice and not force them to drive.
Recognizing the Soviet occupation limited Latvian‘s “freedom” in many ways for decades, its understandable that they would hold onto something that gives them a *sense of freedom* they were missing. If they are still like they were in the 90’s, money talks louder than anything! I imagine that if money came in to redevelop many of buildings along these streets, IF the city would re prioritize non-car movements along them, you’d see some real progress.
As an American, I’d love to participate in this revitalization, but in a way that my foreign money & assistance would ensure that the local residents, especially those renting or without these resources, get to benefit from this influx of money, while making a fair return on our investment. If this seems even remotely of interest, LMK & we can connect. Many urbanism RUclipsrs prefer to make videos about the problems & issues than to participate in the revitalization, so if this is you, no worries.
How ironic you blame soviets for bad infrastructure and only video from soviet era you found is with troley buss
Soviet era made too many mistakes in Rīga. Bridge wrongly built, Centeal station and area destroyed, River bankndestroyed, no transit routes, no highways outside Rig. Piblic transport is quite good, except no fast routes to suburba@@MrNeomidis
@@MrsUnderwriter they built in the same style as the rest of Europe at the time. Just look at Rotterdam post ww2 or other big cities which were largely destroyed during ww2 and had to be rebuilt.
@@ttopero oh no please don't. Latvian housing is relatively affordable still because post 2008 crash the influx of foreign money pretty much ended. The main Riga issue I see as a resident is underinvestment in the existing infrastructure - you can see it everywhere, crumbling bridges, sidewalks, holes and patches on the roads everywhere. Even places they resurface, start to fall apart after several years of use.
I lived on the Island of Kipsala between Daugava river banks and saw first hand the slow decline - a small pedestrian bridge closed indefinitely because it became unsafe to walk on, Vansu bridge pedestrian path narrowed further and further with temporary barrier because the pavement started to cave in.
I suspect the reason for this is bad tax policy - money get sucked out the Riga area which generates around 70% of country GDP to small towns outside of the capital. Those small towns almost always look better and has better infra than Riga.
As a local citizen, I wanted to thank you for this video. High quality and data-driven. Paldies!
Thank you! You've mentioned almost all Riga problems I'm so angry about. We just have to stop making things worse to make them better. :(
At the very least Riga is finally trying to improve its public transport again.. In Vilnius we are still waiting for someone in the municipality office to realise that being stuffed into buses isn’t the way forward to drive ridership😅 Even while Vilnius is growing in population!
Half the trolley's are held together by beer and duck tape, or what feels like it and the infrastructure makes them take ages to get where you need them.
I would not describe public transporta of Rīga AS Bad. In fact, it is pretty good
@@MrsUnderwriteryou are American aren’t you?
@@MrsUnderwriteryes I think very good very extensive network will take you to almost any place you need in the city and even to nearby towns
Living in Riga, came from Texas. I come from massively car dependant place that makes Riga passible, though I know it still can be better. I can imagine this place with great walkable, cycling and public transportation infrastructure
Why would u move from texas to this god awful place? im from LV & I WISH i could move to texas
@@RandyOrlok Everywhere is crappy when you live there long enough.
@@RandyOrloka lot of people would never want to move to the usa in contrast to you, it's simply not attractive for many. Many would not want to lose the safety considering that latvia is a very safe country. Actually many people would like to live in the north of Sweden inspired by jonna jinton. Or a similar place in latvia, estonia or elsewhere
@@melonbobful6940not really, jonna jinton has been living in the north of Sweden for a long time and always feels at home there
@@dreamthedream8929 also many people would not like to live in north of sweden , and many people dont know about "jonna jinton". understand? maybe dont answer for "many people"
Absolutely wonderful and a very well educated video! You're bound to explode in the urbanist side of youtube and I can't wait for more people to see your work. People like you are bringing the us back together to fight for a great cause. Thank you.
This video maker completely missed point why people leave Riga.
Its the wanting to own a Car. to be free to travel around country etc. I moved out and almost everyone i work with. now we have our own homes with land
People dont want to live in a Pod eating bugs and being consumers who rent and spend everything on consumer goods and subscribtions. People understand that when they become 35+ years old.
All the recent Modern EUropean choices in last 10 months to ruin infrastructure with grand progressive leftist views accelerated the people moving out of Riga. No one wants to sit in traffic for hours just because some dumb politican decided to ruin half the streets with useless bicycle lines that no one uses 8 months out of 12.
Its quite funny how people like this dont grasp reality because they are inexperienced 20 year olds who smelled farts of some grand teachers in university and now think they know how to fix everything but they have zero life experience.
@@exalexal5003 I thought that everyone here will get smarter about cities and infrastructure after watching this excelent video. I was wrong.
@@gunitapiterane5473 the authors of this very dense video did not understand 2 very big differences in Riga - the large width of the Daugava and other situations in winter. The large width means that historically river crossings have been possible in far fewer places than in cities with narrow rivers/canals.
Now, in January 2024, we can assess the real possibilities for cycling.
I recommend watching NJB's video about winter cycling in Oulu ruclips.net/video/Uhx-26GfCBU/видео.htmlsi=amGxWAb19XdLJYxy
Videos like these should be taken serioud by the city. The city has a lot of problems, one of them - not looking for an example of foreign countries where the green and futurus planning is priority. Great video!
You should make a video about Latvia's roads, for example the so called highways has 2 lanes instead of 4 which makes the highway more safe.
There are a lot for the institutions to finally listen and take needed action.
The highway to Estonia has two and a half lanes. I was seriously scared driving there.
As a guy living in Riga, I can confirm that our infrastructure is very bad. The only great thing is the Rail Baltica project but nothing else. Riga city council needs more young people.
It is a military project
Es Tev piekrītu!👍🏽
How is it very bad?
@@EduardsRadionovs-t8lkāpēc ir slikta?
@@dreamthedream8929 Well, many roads are full of potholes, some places don’t even have sidewalks, and some places are also dangerous. That's why Riga has a high death rate on roads. Also public transport- the tram lines are so dirty, that they create a sandstorm, buses always get stuck in traffic and the connection from the city centre to the airport is so bad.
Thank you for the video! I have contacts in DM's with the current Rīga vicemayor who is a very open to the public guy and I sent this video to him, he will 100% see this video, thank you alot for the video and I hope he forwards this video to the right authorities to see their bad planning! New subcriber to you sir!
Just one more lane bro
Telling former Soviet countries to make desirable urban planning infrastructure compared to our Dutch infrastructure is a heavy task and it will come with a lot of resistance.
But eventually i hope Latvia get its act together and make more dense desirable places for its people.
Thank you for the wise words. We have pretty decent public intercity and city transport network, but those with better paid jobs often have arbitrary locations of work too complicated to reach and thus banally incentified to use cars. Not only this lazy, costly (if time-saving) mentality is a burden on Riga, the city simply was not designed for so many cars in Soviet times, never mind the old town in medieval period. Now it's a really high and painfully slow task to redesign it. Especially without nevessary experience and progressive, open human-oriented mindset, leading to expensive mistakes like the Southern "golden" bridge. Note, the rest of our cities are not as plagued by cars and pollution, Riga is the scariest place to drive or ride here.
Other problems are ex.g. an order of magnitude smaller budget (just a guess, having stayed in Amsterdam and Roterdam), just recently curbed systematic corruption in city council, nepotism and.. Main thing, a similar progressive humanist mindset that i've seen among the Dutch institutions. Sometimes i feel the project planners should be thought organic city design and even things like feng-shui, as we have some brilliant architects, but often ugly outcomes. If this doesn't work, where possible should just copy you))
@@dannydetonatorin amsterdam they don't cut the grass like in riga, in riga it's cut flat while in Amsterdam it's left in its natural state growing tall with a lot of flowers. In parks and elsewhere.
Great video. I'm British and never been to Riga, although I have visited other Eastern European countries (Ukraine and Slovenia). Riga looks like it has huge potential to be amazing but seems like they're unfortunately making mistakes they don't need to make. I do agree that making streets for people again would be a great move, however I feel like there's more to the problem than just that. There has to be economic factors involved, and I suspect the planning/zoning system probably also needs reform to. The most worrying thing in your video is not the lack of bike lanes, but those new suburban developments and retail parks that look like they could be in the U.S.A. Latvia...PLEASE don't do this! It'll be VERY hard to fix that. Much harder than retrofitting bike lanes in.
Riga is doing well compared to Tallinn where cycling lanes were built unseperated by the roads, they are narrow and some of them are in the middle of the road in viaducts, you will probably get injured cycling these red cycle lanes😵💫
Really appreciate the work that you have put, especially all the archival footage - thank you! Riga is indeed still suffering from mistakes of the past, however, it is inexcusable that those mistakes are being repeated today. Changes are incremental and unfortunately the majority of the public is so used to car-centric planning that there is a great deal of pushback toward any proposals to reduce the flow of motor traffic. I really hope that Riga can turn the trend around, because it really is a fantastic city!
Good video. Saddly this situation is not uniqe to Riga alone, but in all around Latvia. Many documents and plans are ignored or not observed intentionally. Also many construction business are involved in stealing money and construction materials.
Latvia is basically a failed state propped up by E.U. money.
Thanks! This video perfectly explains all my frustrations that I have about Riga.
Paldies! Sanāca ļoti labi un kvalitatīvi!
Riga has so much potential for huge city planning mistakes, I am sure current city council will use every opportunity to make them.
Very high-quality video with a lot of good points being made! Keep up the good work👍
Firstly, what a great chanel with a similar vibe to not just bikes. Secondly, as a person from Latvia it is great to see the problems with infrastructure and the possible improvements in our country. Very informative as well. Thank you.
Interesting video. I visited Riga this summer and despite I mostly visited the inner city, I immediately detected the city was very car orientated. My hotel was near a place with driving schools, and there was lots of activity with students learning to drive a car in this area. The potential to place living areas, houses cafés and so near the river is so huge as I did not see a lot of activity on the river after the ferry terminals and the low bridges. In other livable cities the area near the river has a lot of value, but this was mostly empty in Riga, or at least part of the side on the northern side had a highway next to it. It will be interesting to see if Rail Baltica will change something in Riga and may turn things around. If one is smart, invest in plot of lands near the river and see this land increase its value in one or two decades if Riga makes a turnaround in its city planning.
Agree. At least they made a nice walk/bike path along the river to the island with the TV tower. Which is incredible but rarely promoted
I fully agree with all the points made, particularly the observation about people from Soviet-era neighborhoods not even considering moving to the city center. When I was searching for a new place some years ago, I never once thought, "The city center is the best option!", even though technically in my line of work... it should be? 🙃
One thing I gotta say, I love the effort you put into this video and when pronouncing Latvian words didn't feel like nails on a chaulk board as it usually does when someone other than a Latvian trIes to say them. And also, it reinforced some believes about how things operated back in my home country and as well I learned some new stuff about it, mainly that we produced Fords in the day :D
But that said, there are a lot of issues with wanting Latvia to develop Riga like the Netherlands does with their towns and cities. FIrst most it's the attitudes of people and people much themselves, there is a lot of "soviet era stuborness" to be found and trying to make these people go a completely different way that is used to them is nigh impossible, and two, generally, people want to be out of the cities, often mentioned that Latvians are people of the country side and want to be away from the dense city sprawl, and with how depressed most people are, most won't want to be told where they have to live if they want to work in Riga.
Why do you think that this person is not latvian?
Es biju par mašīnām Rīgā, tu man iedevi jaunu perspektīvu uz šo visu. Var redzēt, ka ieguldīji ļoti daudz laika video izveidē. Malacis, tā tik turpini 💪💪💪
Woow! Your video is amazing! A clear, educated look on Latvian reality. Living inside it, its often easy to forget that there are other different perspectives.
Keep making videos, man! =)
Love it, do Vilnius PLS! These are great videos to share with friends to kickstart conversations about these topics.
Great content! 🔝👍🏻
Lielisks video! Paldies!
Riga has one of the most expensive parking in the world in comparison to income, which has lead to reduced economic activity. I think it was a mistake, because no alternative for personal transport was created. Public transport won't work for everyone and a lot of people hate it for being dirty, cold, no seats for everyone. In a country with minus 0 to 20 Celsius degrees nine months in a year, alternatives must be close to perfect. Heated bike lanes everywhere are the only solution, really.
I lived in Spain and enjoyed waking trough the city and had no car for the family. We bought a car before returning to Latvia and it's not because we don't like walking or bicycles.
Car equals speed and quite often traveling long distances is not convenient with a bike. And sorry but not everyone lives, wants or can live in the city Center so pretty understandable why car lanes are the priority.
Comparing Rīga to Netherlands? Check the weather sir. It's 4-5 months of normal weather here. Car makes all the sense.
Also when the weather is good I still don't use a bike as I do not enjoy getting sweaty every time I need to get somewhere to work. Also I don't enjoy carrying shopping bags with my bike.
The guy has some good points but he’s too much of a zoomer hipster who’s too much into bikes.
Our weather is not the same as the Netherlands. We are also not as big as Texas. So we need bike lanes trough the city but not too many as well. The traffic is too much already (I know the opposite talking points)… I won;t eat ze bugzz and in the future I want my own house, few acres of land and I want/need to get to Riga for business.
Now I agree with some of your points, but an excuse not to have buses is just bad, cause they are 14x better than cars and the new buses that are used the most are H2 powered so they don't make any emissions. I live next to a road that had about 30 old preserved trees cut down just for a bike lane that no one uses. In my opinion, the biggest problem with the bridge up north is that there are almost no one going to drive. Don't always focus on the negatives. With the public transport again, if we used public transport more and none of those people that don't buy tickets did buy the tickets then maybe, cause they use the tickets bought to make buses more frequent or not.
But you aren't thinking about the traffic that could be solved by a bridge north of Riga.
Brilliant video, glad this was recommended to me
Wonderful video, thank you very much! Very high-level content. Subscribed
As a recent bike owner, I can say that bike infrostructure is not the best, but its livable. Still.. I would not want to drive on the road because often sides have debri and holes and driving in the middle in my eyes is suicide seeing how some people drive and my still lacking expierience. Planning is bit weird you might have bike lanes randomly ending into nothingness but many pavements and sides are at least slanted down without step next to them, so it do assist biking. In past years I am seeing more bikes around so at least trend is going up. One big advantage is also public transport what is quite good for my personal needs, but I am sure there are many things to improve.
There indeed is potential here, its sad to see so many abandoned buildings and places in bad shape only going worse. Hope some things do improve, I am personally also living in soviet time 'hruscovka', but despite their age and appearance, I still see them as quite appealing, mostly because of loads of space near the buildings, what at least in my particular case is still mostly filled with trees and grass and not parking lots.
Nice to see another European country mentioned talking about human friendly environments!
This is a great video, thank you for highlighting Riga’s car centric mentality. As an expat living in the centre (owning a bike not a car!) I find it so frustrating the lack for infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists. Every day is battle against fumes and noise.
Interesting video. I wish you'd do one about Tallinn as well.
Great and realistic content.
Thank You for video. I personally hold an opinion that there should be more cycling infrastructure in my native Riga. I only remember late 1980 since I was born in Riga in 1983. There were much less cars. Now the traffic is all swollen up too much. I think it should be limited to some degree. Maybe with allowing only city residents to commute with their personal cars and entrance fee for non-residents like it is in Jūrmala. The later be offered to use car sharing with dedicated car sharing parking places.
I am sadly a driver. Purely because there is no other option. Even public transit is awful where I live because in order to get from one place to another I need to go either through the city center by bus or cycle on awful and dangerous roads. I know Latvians are people who usually sit there and do nothing because they feel like no one will listen to their opinion, but why are so many of us so careless about this? I know its easier to sit there and do nothing and just get away as soon as possible, but is no one ready to atleast try to fix everything that is wrong with the city? We have good planners and designers as proven by the visualisations in this video, but why are they not implemented properly? Ofc, the answer is money and politics, but when are we finally gonna stand up together and protest this very soviet way of thinking?
The municipality can freely ignore the law without any consequences. Only when competence will arise in the judicial system can things change :/
Great video
Subscribed. Will there be video on Rail Baltica?
When it will be built, yes :)
@@streetscaping so probably never :D
Loti labs video, patika!
Good video and great insight into a problem, but one issue is economics - we dont have money for all of these projects. One side thing not mentioned, that most of high paying jobs are in capital and people want to remain living where they are (outside Riga) and get good wage. Speaking of economics - we are leaps and bounds poorer than Netherlands and cannot afford to construct and maintain all this greenery (as much as I would want to see that as I have been there). About Netherlands - in few places there is cyclists first, but have 0 infrastructure for pedestrians. As pedestrian you need to be careful and look behind your shoulder so cyclist doesnt run you over (happened bunch of times with me), so wouldnt say thats totally safe way of transportation, but better than what we have
We absolutely have the money for good cycling infrastructure and greenery. We can afford to build new stretches of highways for millions but can not build one street with proper cycling infrastructure.
@@streetscaping yes and no. Greenery is not just planting and leaving them to grow, they need to be groomed. So there is also high upkeep cost to have good greenery. I agree that most of high cost projects are dumb. Especially we didnt need national library in middle of city
I'm from kyiv and our city can relate to most of these problems😭 the ussr really left a big brown stain of bad planning on our cities
I need a second version of this video in Latvian
Latvian subtitles will be added soon
@@streetscaping That's great thank you!
Amazing video! Your channel is way too underrated.
starting off with some statistics lying. leaving the city? More like leaving the country itself. you could make an argument for anything that way.
Very interesting video. I'd wish you could do my hometown of Ventspils, because while the city itself is much smaller in terms of amount of people and space, there are still way too many cars roaming around per capita, mostly due to crappy underdeveloped public transport system. Recent corruption scandals and general air pollution due to sea port and related commerce proximity also further worsens the issue.
I lived in Ventspils and it's pedestrian paths are perfect for cycling imo.
@@whatsupbudbud depends on what you compare with. If you compare with netherlands, or Spain where cities are built with bikes in mind - there is no comparison. Pedestrian paths are far too narrow alot of time here even for pedestrians, but then again there arent many people living here in Ventspils (around 35k by official records)
@@dimen363 Spain is not the best bike-friendly place in the world, mind you. And the climate also not forgiving to cycling much the same as ours in LV.
@@whatsupbudbud wym, i’ve recently been to Spain, Valencia. The coldest weather during the year over there is around 10 C with not many rains compared to Latvia, and dedicated bycicle lanes over there are abundant and wide, same goes for pedestrian lanes. During three weeks ive been there I havent encountered any rush hours, compared to Riga where the traffic in and around the center hardly moves during peak hours. Mind you i was staying almost at the city centre in Valencia. There is literally no comparison between the two in terms of bycicle use and related infrastructure availability.
@@dimen363 I mean scorching hot temps which are also not conducive to cycling.
Excellent video essay and as I couldn’t agree more. I think all of the criticism can be applied to my hometown Tallinn as well
Tallinn, like Vilnius, has better planning practices than Riga. If anything, there are examples that Riga should learn from Tallinn!
Well it certainly doesn’t feel this way. Tallinn, much like Riga, is governed by party that can stay in power purely thanks to Russian minority votes. So the city government is dominated by people who are often corrupt, carbrained, soviet-minded or just plain incompetent. High status in the party gets you a more important position, even when you are totally unqualified (Andrei Novikov comes to mind). They are never held accountable for their actions and their power is uncontested, so there is no incentive to change anything. Bike paths in the city centre are a travesty, public transportation network is barely staying relevant and needs update badly, pedestrian infrastructure is not cleaned of snow and so on. There are small improvements, but improvements are only made when they don’t impact car traffic. @@streetscaping
Holly shit this was good, insta sub!
Nice video. Though me as As someone somewhere in the education system chain, i fear they're probably going to take money away from education, again. 😵💫
Very good video. I live in Mezaparks and Brasas bridge is a nightmare and I truly hate that thing. I don't understand why you had to have those barriers and wide lanes. As an alternative, they didn't even need to put cycling road on the bridge, there is perfectly fine place right next to the bridge on the street level , there is a road that was used previously while bridge was in construction. Yes, it crosses the railroad, but currently as I have observed, every cyclist is using that path anyway, instead of riding that stupid bridge. Current cycling path is not straight, you have to cross street before bridge , and then once more after the bridge. it has sharp turns coming down the bridge. Overall its a zigzag mess , and clearly none of the politicians own a bike.
If you live in Mežaparks that may mean that you have a lot of money and are wealthy. Mežaparks is supposed to be the wealthiest neighborhood of rīga. The historic houses and the land there are not cheap. Many people that live in Mežaparks probably have their own business, various companies that allow them to sustain this kind of living. I would suspect that you may meet many multimillionaires there. Rich families living there
@@dreamthedream8929 im earning money, but nowhere close to be wealthy :D but what it has to do with this video? you are saying that rich people dont ride bicycles?
@@kristapszs1 with the video not so much but more with your comment and the part of the city in which you reside. It is known as the wealthiest part of the city. Many rich families reside there. Expensive cars and also probably expensive bicycles. The houses there look great as old architecture does
While I appreciate the nuanced take, don't you think the biggest contributor to people leaving Riga after 1990 was the same as people leaving Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in general? 1 - many muscovites moved to russia after the collapse of USSR, 2 - borders opened, so people flooded to Western Europe and the US.
It's not like Latvia's population grew in that period and only poorly designed Riga declined.
Yes, I did mention that repatriation and emigration to other countries were prevalent during the 90s. That being said, the argument about poorly planned Riga being the reason for the population decline is more applicable to the 21st century.
@@streetscaping Thanks for the response. Well in the 21st century at least 200k Latvians left after joining the EU in '04, so it is difficult for a city to grow when the country loses 10% of its population.
This situation is interesting though, as Vilnius is having the exact same issues with transportation. Suburbia is sprawling, and yet the city itself is also increasing in population.
I thought with Riga the growth would be even larger than Vilnius because there are no other larger industrial centers in Latvia. The country essentially has one city.
@@kristupasbitlierius7017first off large industrial center does not equal a city, there are several cities in latvia and secondly now the main reason for decreasing population in rīga is that people move to smaller towns or countryside. They wanna live closer to nature. That's a good reason.
Great video mate
They've poured new concrete on the A7 near my familiy's home near the border of Riga and it has actually increased the commute time to the city by like 15 minutes cause you can't turn in towards the city without doing a giant loop.
The large scale demolition started even before the soviets You might want to look into Ulmaņa Plans for the city you can see traces of it in the oldtown around current ocopation museum and Freedom Monument.
And Finance ministry whilst at least it kept a neo-classical outward appearance did demolish many building in the oldtown...
Ulmanis had some terrible plans for the city indeed, however, the most significant damage occurred during WW2 of course
@@streetscaping Just pointing It out as it's often overlooked.
If his whole plan would have been implemented there would not be much of an oldtown to speak of.
But as it stand the Soviets do to take the cake could say that Riga got off reletivly lucky seeing what they did to towns like Kõnigsberg Current Kalingrad and not to mention plenty of russian tsarist cities that are now essentially whipped off the map.
because of ulmanis the dome square exists. He took the buldings there down even before the war arrived@@Zevzs727
Nice video.👍
Is there a comparable city weather-wise that has similar amount of cyclists as AMS or CPH? Because I've lived in DK and their weather is perfect for cycling while here in Latvia winter is just terrible for that. And if you have kids, then it's a whole different ordeal without a car. So what say you?
I recommend looking up cycling in Oulu, Finland
@@streetscaping I was on a business trip to Oulu on Christmas and no, didn't see a single cyclist there.
@@whatsupbudbud ruclips.net/video/Uhx-26GfCBU/видео.html
Ay the new trains are pretttyyy good though not gonna lie
Really nice video!
"9.1 mil are untraceable..." classic...
In Latvia, no one adopts the new patterns from Western Europe, and they continue to wallow in such nightmares. 11:55
Latvia has ordered 30 sets of regional trains from Skoda, and in each of these trains, with 400 seats each, there is NO SPACES FOR TRANSPORTING BIKES AT ALL! The situation will eventually force us to get space for bicycles on these trains, but this will require a new amount of millions of euros.
In this way, financial resources are wasted on things that shouldn't happen, instead of being used for further progress.
Ohh god it’s everywhere
Once lived in Riga and moved out. It is a very unpleasant city overall.
Over 9million Euros not traceable....hmmm? I wonder whose pockets it somehow fell into...accidentally, of course. No one would EVER wish to rip off the people of Latvia, Im sure.
The city smells like a Volkswagen and it takes only 1/3 - 1/2 the time to use public transport than to walk, at which point it's often faster to ride a scooter through crowded sidewalks.
Daud kam pēc būtības var piekrist, bet ir dažas nepilnības - par Brasas tilta izgāšanos nav jāvaino dome, bet gan vietējie ''aktīvisti'', Čaka iela bardaks arī ir ''aktīvistu'' nopelns. Krasta ielā ir divu joslu veloceļš katrā pusē, tur īsti neredzu pamatu piesietes. Bet kopumā doma ir pareizajā virzienā
Visi infrastruktūras projekti ir domes vaina, tā ir viņu atbildība.
Uz Krasta ielas ir vienā pusē tikai btw
Man sajūta, ka tu vairāk ienīsti automašīnas, nekā mīli velosipēdistus
Patīk abi, tikai mašīnas vajag ar mēru pilsētā
And here I was thinking Polish urbanist mentality was exceptionally bad for EU standards.
you dont hate your elders enough
Oh a video about Latvia. Expectations: happy, Realisation: sad, and depressed.
Utainie sapisa visu
I'm from Riga. WTF u saying ... People are leaving Riga not because infrastructure..There are many economic problems in this country and the government only sucks all the money out of the people, killing the future of this country.
For some context, we had a terrible mayor for 10 years who focused solely on the Russian audience and neglected the city entirely. During his tenure, Riga lost significant money due to corruption. Only when he was replaced by someone who truly cared did the city start to improve in recent years. Let's hope this positive trend continues after the 2025 mayor election, though there’s concern that someone similar to the previous terrible mayor is attempting to take over again.
The current mayor ain't doing much good either
And whers metro project ? Inportant part of history,....never releazed, but could be helpful.....but latvians afraid....protesting.....Today no money for metro only traffic jums. Could get some benefit from Soviet Times : ))
If it were built we couldn't afford to maintain it. Just look at the streets..
we will never see anything good in Riga !!!!
Nice video, but your forgetting that people usually don't tend to cycle in winter, you cant really compare Latvia where snow is common sight in winter with Amsterdam where snow is tragedy. So why make expensive dedicated infrastructure when its going to stay unused 1/4 of year? And don't get me started about helmets.
I recommend watching NJB's video about winter cycling in Oulu ruclips.net/video/Uhx-26GfCBU/видео.htmlsi=amGxWAb19XdLJYxy
@@streetscaping Yes picking city way up north with at least twice as much snow is going to teach Latvians how to cycle in winter and in snow.
People won't cycle in summer either if there's not a proper cycling infrastructure. Check Oulu for example where people cycle at even -25 degrees
People do cycle during winter. They would cycle more if there were a safe space to do it.
Norway, Sweden, Finland has snow too, yet cycling doesn't stop because of it.
Cycling in the winter is properly unfeasible a month maybe two months out of the year. We really don't get that much snow
After 30 years still blaming soviets. After 70 more years they will still keep blaming soviets
If something has been stinking in your apartment for 50 years, do you think that when you open the windows, the smell will disappear like a snap of a finger?
5% truth 5% maybe 90% pilseta cilvēkiem bullshit
Grūti šo uztvert nopietni, ja jau sākumā sāk ar maldinošiem faktiem. Latvijā iedzīvotāju skaits no 1990 gada arī ir samazinājies par 30%, līdz ar to relatīvi pret kopējo iedzīvotāju skaitu Rīgas iedzīvotāju skaits ir stabils.
Un tas attaisno izšķērdēt naudu nekvalitatīvos projektos tikai tāpēc, ka politiķi dēļ savas stulbās karjeras un siltās vietiņas baidās pieņemt drosmīgus lēmumus?
Kopumā nevajadzētu pieiet ar lielu vērību šim video, tur daudzas lietas ir baltiem diegiem šūtas.
Aicinu Jums iepazīties ar Rīgas pilsētas velosatiksmes attīstības koncepciju 2015.-2030. gadam sadaļu 3.2 Rīga šodien
Velo infrastruktūras izveide, protams, ir forši, taču tā neatrisinās problēmas. Paskatieties pa logu, un sapratīsiet, kādēļ.
Arī pieminētā Rail Baltica no Acones, Preču-2 un Vagonu parka līdz centram baigās masas neatvedīs, jo tur tādas vienkārši nedzīvo.
Te būtu jāraugās metro virzienā, tā ir jēdzīga alternatīva transporta aizvākšanai no virszemes jebkuros laikapstākļos.
Papildus visam jābūt mazāk saudzīgiem pret kultūrvēsturiskā mantojuma saglabāšanu - jaunas piecstāvenes perifērijas pļavā ir nopietns konkurents veco māju atjaunošanai tieši izmaksu ziņā.
you keep saying 'soviet style car planning'. Im sorry its not soviet anymore, its modern capitalist style urban planning, thank you very much.
It is very soviet
I still dont get why suburbs are painted in a bad light.
Suburbs usually mean more cars and more cars mean more issues
Suburbs are an American idea that had long been looked down upon by the upper echelons of the cultural Left. They don't like cars, glorify European lifestyles (fine, within limits), dislike the conformity of the suburbs, and believing they themselves are better or correct, would like to ration gas, electricity, and certain foods in order to achieve climate goals. Really, it's a class war. Climate, a certain take on urbanism, and a diverse society have nothing to do with it.
Usually suburbs are detached from the rest of the city leading car dependency
Riga is very sad city. I live in and every day see this BS.
Liels paldies! Love from Latvia, hope that one day our society will be able to break away from the baggage left by the occupation times...
Net
Hope one day Latvia can stop blaming all their problems on occupation times.
@@yts4106 Same. Unfortunately, Soviet-era thinking still infests a lot in this country, like a cancer.
Во времена так называемой "окупации", жилья, дорог, электростанций и прочего добра было построено больше, чем во времена "свободы".
@@RigaGid Aha. And yet somehow the GDP per capita of Latvia in 1939 was somehow higher then it was for most of the occupation. Not to mention, maybe it would have been better for us to build European infrastructure ourselves instead of have backwards commie one forced on us?
There is one, ONE! Good bit of cycling infrastructure and it's not even useful for commuting, only for leisure
Very interesting.
I have lived in S.E. Asia over the last 15 years. I often say "Once you buy a car, you will never go back to bus, tram, motorbike or bicycle. Cars are the devil. Best wishes from Bangkok.
Paldies, gandrīz kā Ķibilda Adreses, forši
This is a very informative video and will educate many.
Leaving Riga - does it account for the reduced population in the entire nation and the emigration of minorities to neighboring countries, you mentioned it later but not in the intro. People moving outside of Riga is also largely because of cost. There was an infamous case of a supermarket employee having to sleep in a stairwell of a nearby building due to unaffordable rent.
The facades of buildings not being repaired is not something that can be attributed to traffic. There is a common demographic pattern of poor elderly people living in such houses who are too burdened financially to be able to afford renovation. Lack of investment is true, but again, with the high costs of Riga, it's an additional factor.
Don't skip the war, there are still war torn buildings to this day. A huge amount of capital also fled the country to the west, including USA, Germany, Sweden and the UK.
The historical videos are well found and relevant, and the changes during the occupation left a lot to be desired. Meanwhile, cobblestone roads, while historical, are often a nightmare to walk, ride a bicycle on or drive on. Something that we don't and shouldn't see the same way as people from the past - gasoline/petrol was absurdly cheap back then.
A large problem with cycling is the risk of death due to the driving culture.
Brasa bridge should be cancelled.
As for the public transport, let's add some detail as to why people choose not to use it. First of all, the poor design began also in the Soviet era, with many of the bus stops being fairly inconvenient or just far from their actual destinations. (If you feel like they are not bad, try a better city where the buses are where you actually need them.) Next, until a few years ago with timed tickets, the prices encouraged you to only ride a single bus/tram/trolleybus, which for most people meant that going "slightly to the right" either meant a) walking for 10+ minutes or b) paying double. On top of these two factors, most of the routes go from X to the center of the city. Meaning that if you need to go to the district next to you, you are probably going to go to center and then come back.
Then there is the culture of public buses, with drunks, loudness and excessive amount of people during busy times. Multiply that by the amount of old buses and trams and you get an experience most people chose to evade. Not just people living in a private home in a sprawl, but people living in a high rise building at the edge of the city. So why not buy new transportation? If you did that, you might just run into the biggest theft scandal. Which leads to the problem of corruption, that is mentioned in the video. However, with the unplanned haphazard transition to a capitalist economy with the influence of criminal organizations and foreign governments, it is surprising that any progress has been made at all.
Finally, if we talk about inter-city level travel (since Riga is expensive), the amount of inconvenience has for a long time been an indication of complete lack of understanding of modern people's needs. Connecting between different modes of transportation has been a joke. The least inconvenient maybe was the train station which has somewhat close access to buses but even that's generous. Next, the intercity buses stop a good quarter mile away from the rest of the transportation. It's almost like people coming from other cities are supposed to just sightsee and not get to a destination *unless they use a car and skip all of that*. Near the airport, the bus stop was conveniently placed at a place that didn't even have pavement connecting it to the airport. As for the connection between buses and ferry the answer is simply "no".
Factoring in the demographics and poor state of alternatives, I can't say that there was any other way. It is the symptom not the pure cause. Of course with better education and understanding, people could have averted many of these issues and probably made every one of these pain points a little less bad, resulting in a cumulative effect. So to me, this is more of an advertisement of what we could have if we solve the underlying social issues.
One part that I didn't see was about the current developments and changes. There are good parts, but I will highlight the poor ones as it's the theme: walking in the area around the markets and the new train station has been a farce. The many roadworks have crippled all forms of traffic. On top of that, the reduced speed limits, parking spaces and drivability has decreased accessibility since it is not matched by a qualitative alternative.
Having spent time in more places around the world I will say though that the absolute focus on 'bicycles' is a bit of a cosplay. It seems like Europeans are 'too good' for mopeds, since if you look at the traffic density, they are basically the same as bicycles while having several benefits that allow them to be used as well as cars, such as long range, higher speed and low noise. And I am talking about electric mopeds, ones that do not even require lithium batteries. Given the high costs of quality bicycles, you might even have a cheaper electric moped as an option.
I am considering if I need to make a video about the context of cars and alternatives in Latvia, the politics and geopolitics of it.
What's wrong with Brasa bridge? Sure it took half a decade but the end result is good imo.
I've been searching for a long time for a documentary to introduce my parents to this issue. Your objective an unagressive storytelling makes this video ideal👍🏻
Thank you!
Liels paldies! Used to live in Riga and cycle to school, across Vanšu tilts 2010-2013 (our old flat is featured in the video :), never realised then how risky it was. I've got to admit, every time I've gone back in the last couple years I thought there were a few improvements, but I guess I've only really paid attention to façade restorations in the city centre... Here's hoping future admins take more steps forward than back and act transparently.
Bad planning is secondary at best. The number one problem Riga has is the cost. The rapidly aging demographic is a nationwide problem so I will exclude it from my comment.
Mortgage for a house within 30 minute driving distance with a car is cheaper than rent of a ~40m^2 apartment in the city. Us Latvians also prefer to have more distance between one another than others so both financially and culturally we're incentivized to move to outskirts of the city if we can afford it. Now you pair the aforementioned with bad planning and any potential convenience of living in the city proper can not compete with the concept of owning your own home in the city's outskirts. I don't necessarily view this as a bad thing either, since suburbanization in Riga is not even remotely comparable to suburbanization in USA for example(plain residential areas don't really exist - they morph into small villages and towns which have their own micro economies).
For the city to have a resurgence it needs actual people living in it - it needs to become at least a competitive alternative for locals financially. I don't want to be overly pessimistic but no amount of improved city planning will fix it by itself.
I loved this deep dive into a place with which I am unfamiliar! I learned a lot and it gave me some great ideas for improving my own car-dependent city! Thanks for this!
As someone who originates from Riga and has been living in the Netherlands... this!
Riga resident here. Yes, we have problems and the more they are highlighted, the better. But you've also cherry picked the bad and the ugly. The city has an extensive and affordable transit network. I live 4 km from the centre and have easy access to buses and commuter trains, and in summer I cycle everywhere - you can ride on the sidewalks, which are quite wide and are an ok substitute for bike lanes. As for the centre, loads of people live there, and while yes there are a few abandoned buildings, the amount of restoration in the last 30 years is incredible. We have plenty of strengths to focus on to improve further.
Sorry, the public transport network is not great at all and the city center has lost more than 100k people. It is absolutely tragic.
@@streetscaping Now, can you give some details why you think the public transport is bad? We have trams, trolleybuses, buses and commuter trains. The network reaches everywhere in the city. A monthly ticket for unlimited trips is 30 euros - 1 euro per day. The vehicles and infrastructure are being constantly improved. I know lots of people who very happily live and work in Riga without a car. It's really easy - you walk, bike or ride the transit, and sometimes get a Bolt taxi. About the population. Latvia's population as a whole has significantly declined, due to a very low birth rate and net emigration. That's a long story, but it has obviously affected Riga too. The city centre is very lively, with bars, restaurants, offices, shops, and loads of apartments. Yea, there's a few derelict buildings, along with hundreds and hundreds which have been beautifully restored. Some centre neighbourhoods are very posh - the residents choose to live there, although they could easily afford to live somewhere else. Yes, some percentage of people move to the suburbs and live a car-centred life. Considering anyone over 40 spent time in Soviet communal apartments or tiny flats in the high rise estates, the desire for space is understandable. I live in Riga. What is your expertise on the subject? When did you last visit the city and how long did you stay? Because your video is crap - it doesn't take much intelligence to chuck together some ugly photos and do a hatchet job.
@@philipbirzulis5099 To the point of public transport, technically you're right that it reaches everywhere in the city, but there are many routes that are badly optimized. For example, there is a woman I know who lives in Ziepniekkalns, but works in Jaunmārupe, the route from her home to the workplace is about 7-8 km, but she has to take trolleybus to the center, and then transfer to another bus (because riding a bike on a 90km/h highway is terrifying, and the bus stop for buses 10 or 55 is far away) , which means she has to spend more than half an hour on a route that shouldn't take more than 15 minutes.
There are other annoyances that just make public transport undesirable, for example 56th bus, that has a route so long, that it just never arrives on time, and wastes a lot of time going in circles in basically every neighborhood it comes through, or the fact that some transport with similar route arriving at very similar times, with huge gaps between arrivals, I believe 44th and 46th buses have that problem, where they differ by like 5-10 minutes, and then you need to wait for 30 more minutes if you missed both of them.
My point is, I think we are definitely in a relatively good place in terms of availability of PT, but there are lots of things that could be improved.
P.S. Also it's very annoying that you can't rely on PT for very important appointments. I've missed 2 dentist appointments and 1 work meeting just because the bus I needed didn't arrive in time, and they didn't send another one until it was too late. At the very least now you can see locations of the buses in Rīgas Satiksme app, but it's very clunky.
Riga resident here. Your video has some good points, however I cannot but to criticize your main takeaway that bike lanes would solve most issues. Riga is a city which is commuted to due to the country having barely any economic opportunities outside of its capital. This is contrary to e.g. Germany or the Netherlands which have many economic centres, lowering the need to commute. As such, cycling is not possible to be the main mode of transportation in Riga. More important is a good network of public transport within Riga but also connecting Riga with suburbs and other cities within the country. In no case should a bus lane be sacrificed for a bike lane, as you suggested. Public transport within Riga is good, although too focused on buses and trolley-buses which can get stuck in traffic. The commuting trains are currently being improved however the network needs higher electrification and more tracks to allow for more commuters to reduce the usage of their cars. Parking spots in Riga are currently not too many and the prices for monthly tickets are amongst the most expensive in the entirety of Europe (parking for residents is less than a 10th of the price in Berlin). What is needed is more underground parking to free up space on the surface, although this is difficult to achieve due to the small amount of houses being built from scratch. The need to transit large parts of the city requires for a good street network, however due to improper layout, many lanes are not used efficiently and cars need to change lanes often. More efficient planning for car infrastructure could increase its overall capacity whilst reducing the required space. A large factor too are the constant road repairs due to them being executed incredibly cheaply, leaving the road damaged only shortly after its completion.
What I found especially off-putting in this video, is your framing of mandating helmets as anti-cyclist. This is like saying seat belts are anti-motorist. Helmets are a safety feature and it is only sane to use them, especially when sharing lanes with cars where Latvian drivers rarely keep a distance greater than 30cm.
100% agree on that, cycling is a very nice option to go around the neighborhood to get groceries, but it's not a solution to all the transporting issues, and PT lanes are way more important.
Excellent video. Could you make a similar video on Vilnius? I would be more than glad to help with footage and research.
Vilnius has far better planning practices than Riga, especially the new cycling infrastructure. If anything, it would be a video about how Vilnius is a great example for Riga to follow!
@@streetscaping Would love to see video about Vilnius!
What an amazing video! Liked and already subscribed!
I can confirm everything that you mention, except that my confirmation is from Ukraine.
Tallinn, Estonia next please!!!
We have the same problems although we have bicycle infrastructure and better PT.
But still... our mayor drives each day 7-9km to work although there is a perfectly working BRT.
Awesome content! I've lived here all my life and agree that the centre of Riga needs major changes.