The condition of Latvia's road infrastructure is a literal reflection of the decisions taken and the funding allocated by whichever political forces happen to be in power. At the same time, situations arise in which what one set of political forces judged to be good, the next set leaves to fall into neglect. Changing this requires a long-term development strategy backed by appropriate funding.
So says Aldis Vigulis in an interview with “Dienas Bizness”. He is the project manager at the road construction company SIA “Binders” (responsible for the Ķekava bypass, the construction of the Saulkrasti bypass, and reconstruction work at the Liepāja and Lielvārde airfields), with almost 30 years of professional experience. He acknowledges that road construction and repair costs have risen in recent years, while the funding allocated by the state has fallen. As a result, we will be able to repair fewer and fewer roads.
What is the situation with roads and streets in Latvia?
The answer can be radically different depending on which roads and streets a particular driver uses. Broadly speaking, one can always conclude that the road and street infrastructure could be better. The most telling argument is to compare the present state of a given stretch of road or street with the situation 15-20 years ago. On the main state highways, for example, there are no longer any stretches in markedly poor condition; one can say they are in good shape. The picture with regional and local roads, however, is an entirely different matter.
In recent years the state has begun repairing regional and local roads, but a great deal more investment is needed before they reach the standard of the main state highways. Naturally, the people who use these roads would like to see them put right much sooner, but the amount of funding depends on how much money politicians set aside for this purpose in the annual state budget. There is no denying that EU structural funds have made a substantial contribution to sorting out the main state highways, yet in 2024 there is no EU money for this purpose, even though Lithuania and Estonia do have European Union co-financing. There is, of course, co-financing of 41 million euros from the Recovery and Resilience Facility for repairs to regional roads. That is better than nothing, but one has to bear in mind that reconstructing a single stretch of road alone can run into millions of euros.
The condition of streets in built-up areas is a separate, very broad and, for many, painful subject, one that is in a sense distinct from roads. Certainly, streets in many Latvian towns and cities have been reconstructed and rebuilt in recent years and their condition has improved considerably, yet there are still a great many streets in need of repair for which, unfortunately, no sufficient or appropriate funding has been earmarked. The amount of funding granted naturally depends on the decisions of the politicians in power in the Cabinet of Ministers or the local authority. Although those who take political decisions regularly face the voters' verdict once every four years, experience shows they think more about short-term than long-term gains. That is to say, for one and the same sum of money you can achieve far more (in kilometres) only if you replace the top layer of asphalt concrete on a street rather than properly strengthening the carriageway foundations with new layers of crushed stone and sand, to say nothing of replacing the associated infrastructure - water mains, sewerage, rainwater collection and drainage, along with electricity, gas and communications cables. This way the politicians in power can show voters far more kilometres of repaired street and hope for their goodwill.
Yet such short-term solutions mean one thing: streets (and roads too) that have had their top layer of asphalt concrete replaced will need repairing again before long, because potholes will form; whereas long-term solutions, in which a street (or road) is reconstructed with the carriageway foundations completely replaced, cost far more, and the length of street repaired shrinks substantially. The main problem is the absence of long-term planning and a long-term strategy; its roots lie in short-term political interests, which in a sense run counter to long-term interests (and costs). This problem is not unique to Latvia, however, as the experience of other countries also shows.
What do you mean by that?
Around 2010 the prevailing view in Latvia was that roads in Lithuania were far better, and at the time there was a good, vivid illustration of this for Latvian drivers crossing the border at Grenctāle and entering Lithuania. Unfortunately, almost 20 years on the situation is the reverse, because the carriageway on the Lithuanian side is in worse condition than ours. How is that possible? Very simply! The answer lies in short-term gains that create problems (extra costs) in the future. While in Soviet times the quality of the main state highways in Lithuania and Latvia was similar, after independence was restored each country chose a different operating model. Lithuania decided to replace the top layer of asphalt concrete without strengthening the road foundations laid in Soviet times and without replacing the sand and crushed stone layers, but reporting every year on a very large number of kilometres of road repaired. Drivers were delighted. Latvia took the opposite route: the main state highways were rebuilt, their foundations replaced along with the sand and crushed stone layers, but the total number of kilometres reconstructed was nowhere near as impressive as in Lithuania. Latvian drivers were also more critical of the potholed, unrepaired stretches of state road. It is now clear that in the long run Latvia has come out ahead compared with Lithuania, where, because of short-term interests, those same stretches of state road will sooner or later have to be rebuilt, while for the time being resources have to be spent on repairing them.
What about the bridge over the Salaca at Salacgrīva, on the strategic Via Baltica highway, which turned out to belong to the local authority, and which the state took into its own ownership only this year in order to start repairs?
It is undeniably something of a curiosity. The question is: can we see anything similar elsewhere - a state highway that “turns into” a town street, for which the local authority in question is then responsible? As for the Via Baltica motorway, the conclusion has to be that it needs rebuilding as a solid four-lane road - two lanes in each direction. It may be that when Via Baltica was designed, traffic volumes as heavy as today's were not anticipated, and the solution of a road that switches between two and three lanes raises questions of road safety. Unfortunately, there is no indication whatsoever that anything might change in this respect, because there is no money and nothing suggests there will be more of it than was allocated in 2024.
The bridge over the Salaca is by no means the only case where a state highway “turns into” a town street and the local authority then has to look after it. Latgales iela in Rīga, where the Daugavpils highway comes in; the Bauska highway comes into Mūkusalas iela; the Jelgava highway comes into Vienības gatve; the Ventspils and Liepāja highways come into Ulmaņa gatve; and Brīvības gatve, into which the Vidzeme highway comes. Does dividing responsibility in this way make any sense, given that the streets and bridges in question are used not only by those who live and work in that particular municipality?
Drivers could not care less who owns a street or road, or whether a road “turns into” a street. Whoever owns the infrastructure in question has, and will continue to have, an urge to pin down or mark out their boundaries; what happens beyond them is of little concern to them, because neither the state nor local authorities have the money for it. In a sense the roots of the problem lie in departmental thinking and, possibly, an inability to coordinate the relevant works so that problems do not arise. The question of who owns, maintains, repairs and builds the infrastructure lies in the hands of the decision-makers - the politicians in power. Unfortunately, the biggest headache for everyone is precisely the absence of long-term planning, or the inability to put it into practice.
Quite recently, in mid-2021, the Cabinet of Ministers approved an informative report from the Ministry of Transport on converting the main state highways into express roads with a maximum speed of 130 km per hour by 2040.
Having a long-term strategy is welcome, but there are no further decisions on carrying it out - implementing it - and no clear source of funding. The saddest part is that as the names of ministers change, so does the view of what should be done and how, and different priorities emerge. In effect, what was built up before (the development vision - the strategy) is dismantled; the good and the beautiful will be built afterwards, but it never gets as far as actual construction, because the political leadership changes again and the newcomers once more have a different opinion. As a result nothing moves forward, and there is no clarity about what will happen a year from now either, because procurement tenders are announced every year in March, and they are mostly for the work to be done in that particular year rather than for a longer horizon - two, five or ten years. Latvia once had a State Road Fund, into which the money collected from the vehicle operating tax and fuel excise duty was paid, and it was more or less clear how much money there would be and how it would be used, giving predictability to both road builders and drivers. Unfortunately this good mechanism was abolished, because money is also needed for the country's external and internal security, health care, education and so on, while roads have not really had the funding. The figures alone bear this out - this year the state has allocated 226 million euros for roads, plus 47 million euros from the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility, which have been directed specifically to regional roads.
This funding will be enough to repair a total of 450 kilometres this year. Of these, 220 km are regional roads and 159 km are local roads. The smallest volume of work this year is planned for the main state highways - 71 km. The 2022 funding covered construction works on around 950 km of state roads. In 2023 funding was granted for only 630 km of construction works, and in 2024 the volume is down to just 450 km. Inflation also has to be taken into account, because today this money buys far less than the same sum did in 2021. What can you plan against a trend like that? There are well-founded concerns about the high risk of wrong decisions being taken.
So the fundamental defect in the system is unpredictability?
There is no denying that for companies working in the sector the question of long-term intentions for road repair and construction is crucial, because the government has no document of that kind. Why does it matter? If they could see what is planned over a long-term state planning period of, say, three, five or seven years, businesses could assess their scope for taking part in delivering those projects while at the same time investing in new technologies and renewing their fleet of machinery. Here is one example. It seems that at the start of this century Latvia's decision-makers, having looked at the road surface treatment then in use in Estonia (bitumen plus crushed stone), decided to introduce it in Latvia too. Several road construction companies, “Binders” among them, bought the necessary machinery, but... after about two years the decision-makers abandoned any further use of this technology in Latvia. As a result the machinery was no longer needed and the money spent on buying it was never recouped. In effect, losses were created. The absence of a long-term state programme setting out the volume of roads to be built and repaired over the next three to five years means it is not economically worthwhile for road builders to buy specialist machinery, so it is hired instead. Here is yet another paradox: for “Wirtgen”, one of the largest manufacturers of road construction machinery, the best machinery rental market is the Baltics. If specialist road construction machinery is hired, that of course pushes up the cost of the road construction and repair services concerned, which in practice the client and ultimately society have to pay for, while quite reasonably asking questions about whether road repair costs are justified. It is particularly painful at a time when all road construction material, component and labour costs have risen substantially, which also means that the same money will repair fewer kilometres of road.
Is inadequate funding the reason why many stretches of road end up, after reconstruction, with substantial ditches - practically ravines - which in the event of an accident increase the risk of injury or even death?
The question of road safety is bound up not only with drivers' ability to choose a speed appropriate to conditions, but also with the road infrastructure and its maintenance. There is no denying that ditches alongside roads are needed to drain rainwater off the carriageway, and they can be placed either closer to or further from it. Of course, a ditch further from the carriageway is shallower, but one has to understand that in that case several tens of metres have to be added to the road corridor. That in turn means the state needs several million euros to expropriate the land required for a wider road corridor.
At a time when far more funding is needed for security, health and the provision of other services society requires, it is and will remain difficult to find extra money for widening the road corridor, both to buy back land and to carry out the construction work involved. This question could perhaps begin to be tackled on those stretches of road where reconstruction is planned. It is somewhat sad that Estonian politicians grasped the problem of deep ditches many years ago, while in Latvia the political decision-makers, who follow our northern neighbour's example on so many questions, have yet to grasp it and have accordingly done nothing about it.
How does it happen that when snow or ice melts in Latvia you can often see the asphalt concrete melting away too, with more than one carriageway coming to resemble an obstacle course that benefits nobody but the car repair shops?
The climate is what it is, and everyone has to reckon with it - drivers, those who maintain roads and streets, builders, designers and, above all, decision-makers. The problem is a lack of funding combined with political decisions geared to short-term gains rather than long-term benefit - reconstructing all the layers of a road (or street) once, which costs far more but means no repairs are needed for many years. If you “want lots of kilometres”, you renew only the top layer of asphalt concrete and nothing more, even though the foundation it is laid on is not up to the job and its load-bearing capacity is therefore low. The asphalt crumbling when temperatures swing sharply from below zero to above is then only a matter of time.
Who - the designer, the builder or the client - is responsible when ruts form on a repaired road after a while?
There is no single answer to this question, because the nominal scapegoat may be different in each particular case. What is clear is that the appearance of ruts means someone's work was botched. Most often the one publicly held responsible turns out to be whoever carried out the repair of that stretch of road, even though they did exactly what the repair project for that stretch specified. The builder implements the project drawn up by the designer, taking account of the client's intentions. The client gives the designer a brief based on the financial resources available. Road structures are designed right at the edge of the permissible minimum. At the same time, one has to bear in mind that the client also demands a guarantee period from the builder. I would like to draw attention to the significant difference between a defect and natural wear during the guarantee period. Whereas defects mostly appear because of poor design solutions, substandard construction work, or wrongly chosen technologies or materials, natural wear of the road surface begins from the very first moment it is in service. The top layer of asphalt begins to wear even during the guarantee period. It is called the wearing course for a reason! It wears out naturally under normal operating conditions and has to be replaced at least every 7-10 years.
Road users and society at large often make ironic remarks about the climate at our latitudes, which clients, designers and builders supposedly use to explain away every problem with road quality. I would say this: the climate matters a great deal at the design, construction and operating stages of a road, but it is only one aspect. The quality of a road that has been built, reconstructed or repaired depends on a great many different circumstances, and even builders with long experience frequently run into new problems. Take an example: on a road where the surface layer is renewed with crushed stone, the stone does not adhere to the road surface. The technology used is fairly simple, but it demands great precision in applying the materials (emulsion, crushed stone) and high quality too - the crushed stone must not be dusty, or the amount of dust must not exceed the permissible limit, and before it is laid the stone must be sufficiently and evenly moistened.
The construction process has to take place in weather conditions favourable to the technology being used. Road specifications state that construction work may only be carried out in the precipitation-free period, from 15 May to 1 September. There are subtleties that a road user does not know and will not understand, and which even the builder only learns and understands in the course of the work. For instance, with the technology mentioned above it turns out that everything is determined by the charge (positive or negative) of the emulsion (bitumen-water) mixture and that of the crushed stone. If the emulsion and the crushed stone carry the same charge, then, as we know from physics, particles of like polarity repel one another, whereas if the charges differ they attract. This means that whoever carries out the road repair has to know what they are doing: if the crushed stone from a particular quarry carries one polarity, the bitumen-water mixture must carry the opposite one.
Would it not be a better solution to combine road construction - repair - design with the delivery and maintenance of the work in a single procurement, as was done in the case of the Ķekava bypass?
It has to be said that three-in-one (design, construction, maintenance) is widespread practice abroad, except in Latvia, and indeed across the Baltics. The Ķekava bypass is a welcome exception: the design, construction and 20-year maintenance of this scheme are in the hands of a single company, any problem has to be solved by that company itself, and it is impossible to shift the blame for a defect onto the builder, or to find that the designer specified materials and solutions that are no longer on the market. A further problem is that a repair project for a particular road (or street) has often sat on the shelf for several years, during which both the technologies and the materials to be used have changed, and the very surroundings earmarked for the works have undergone transformations. With “three-in-one”, there is no need to spend many hours or even days agreeing changes to the project with the designer simply because the specified material cannot be bought on the market.
An example? There was a road reconstruction project that specified a drainage pipe to be built into the site, a type that was no longer available at that particular time, though an equivalent was available with an external diameter 2 mm larger than the one in the project. Agreeing this with the client dragged on for months, which meant longer completion deadlines and dissatisfied users of the infrastructure concerned. I hope the Ķekava bypass will not remain the only example combining design with construction and maintenance. In any case it is a good way of delivering a needed infrastructure project while paying for it over the next 20 years, thereby avoiding a major hit to the state budget in one or two years; at the same time the builder maintains it themselves, which creates a very strong incentive to do the work to a very high standard, even if that might cost more. “Latvijas Valsts ceļi” was able to deliver a project like this; I doubt whether smaller local authorities could manage anything similar, given that the same people who write the tender specifications for buying office supplies also prepare the procurement documents for complex road infrastructure repair works. To my mind, the Ķekava bypass is an excellent example of how to deliver a four-lane Rīga ring road project, not only increasing the capacity of the infrastructure but also improving safety on this busy route.