A9 Highway Safety: Addressing the Grim Accident Statistics on the Liepaja Road

The A9 highway is a strategic link to the Kurzeme region, providing access to the port of Liepāja, freight transport, and economic development for the region. But the statistics for this road are grim – in four years, there have been 266 accidents on the Rīga-Liepaja highway, killing 19 people. "There are various reasons why traffic accidents occur on this road. One is related to exceeding the speed limit, choosing the wrong speed, and the fact that these serious traffic accidents occur is related to overtaking manoeuvres," said Gints Ešenvalds, head of the Public Order Police Office of the State Police Kurzemes Region Administration. Many drivers point out that driving on this highway is a constant source of stress. The author of the initiative on the portal "Manabalss.lv" began collecting signatures in the summer of 2024, proposing to rebuild the Liepāja highway into a four-lane road. She pointed out that if this were done, the Latvian public would have a safe road without accidents. Since the required number of signatures was collected, the initiative was reviewed by parliament, but they acknowledged that there is no money for it, as the priority is to organise the European transport network, and the Liepāja highway is not included in it. Tālivaldis Vectirāns, Director of the Road Infrastructure Department at the Ministry of Transport, said: "The Liepāja highway is 190 kilometres long. To rebuild it along its entire length as a road with two carriageways and two lanes in each direction would cost almost two billion." This year, much smaller, locally significant road infrastructure improvement works are planned on this highway – on the section from Pierīga to Trenči, in an attempt to reduce risks in places where accidents most often occur. "There are plans to close 18 direct junctions from the Liepāja highway: nine will be closed completely, and nine will be connected to parallel roads, which will be built in certain sections. Nine intersections will be rebuilt and supplemented with left-turn lanes," said Anna Kononova, representative of Latvijas Valsts ceļi (Latvian State Roads). The Ministry of Transport indicated that significant repairs to the Rīga-Liepāja road and possibly the construction of several lanes could only be considered in 15 or 20 years' time, between 2035 and 2040.