...

I have come into possession of the "Rail Baltica" crossing over the Daugava in Riga. The technical design is vast – thousands of pages. However, the deadlines are pressing. Riga City Council is not capable of absorbing such a project volume with its existing human resources. This means that the people reviewing the designs are not looking at essential details but are just waving it all through. By waving it through like this, they are missing a lot of things that the public will have to live with later. I am not currently blaming the council, because the council's negotiations with the project developers are more like blackmail on the part of the developer to the detriment of Riga residents, rather than negotiations aimed at building a better life for the people of Latvia in the long term. One could trust a good, high-quality designer and sign off without looking. But knowing the negotiations and disputes over various solutions, where the designer's basic approach is just to save their own money, it is better to create an inconvenient solution for people. As far as I am aware, platforms are being narrowed, and there are plans to scrap several access points to platforms, including emergency exits. The widths of these connections are being reduced. There are no calculations on how large crowds of people getting off a train are able to pass each other or reach safety in an emergency situation. If there is anything at all, it is designed not according to flow calculations, but according to a cost-saving method.