Lange: poor road quality causes drivers to lose more than one billion euros every year

Poor road quality in Latvia causes losses for drivers worth more than one billion euros every year, announced Janis Lange, chairman of Latvijas valsts ceļi, at an annual conference on Friday, 21 April.

He said that losses are caused by loss of time, higher fuel consumption and amortization.
 

Lange says the annual funding for road maintenance should be around EUR 720 million to ensure timely repairs. This funding amount would be enough to liquidate all poor and very poor quality roads in Latvia within a decade. Unfortunately, such funding is unavailable at this time.
 

This year’s funding for roads is planned at EUR 159 million. EU funding for roads in Latvia is expected to be close to EUR 130 million. Funding for roads in Latvia is significantly behind Estonia and Lithuania.
 

LVC’s manager explains that only one-third of taxes paid by road users are diverted to road maintenance. On top of that, there will be no EU funding available at all in 2020. According to current estimates, state budget funding for roads may be EUR 150 million in 2020. Of this amount, only EUR 75 million would be diverted to road maintenance, ensuring that it is possible to perform road repairs in three times smaller amount than what is currently possible.
 

Lange says this problematic situation needs to be resolved.

BNN

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