LTV was approached by viewer Ieva, who was outraged at the inconvenience of a change to the route of trolley Bus 9. She considers that the decision has not been considered or discussed. These changes will affect residents of Ķīpsala, students, employees of Riga Technical University (RTU), as well as visitors to the pool and exhibition hall Ķīpsala.
Rīgas Satiksme emphasized that a thorough investigation and analysis of route 9 has been carried out.
“The vast majority of passengers use this trolley bus to get to Iļģuciems,” said Baiba Bartaševica-Feldmane, representative of Rīgas Satiksme. “With these changes, passengers travelling to this destination will get both shorter time they will spend on the route and, [..] we will be able to increase the number of trips. So for the vast majority of passengers, these changes will be positive.”
With the 9th trolley bus re-routing, passengers can get to Iļģuciems more than 10 minutes faster. Unfortunately, for those who want to travel directly from Central Station to Ķīpsala, the situation has become far more uncomfortable. Now this supposedly short stretch can only be done on the 57th bus, which runs only a few times a day, or you have to walk or transfer.
Ieva calculated that previously, using trolleybus 9, Ķīpsala could be reached in 14 minutes, but now the 4 kilometers take 35-45 minutes.
“It is certainly more convenient on the one hand, but it is very restrictive on both routes and voyage counts on those routes,” Bartaševica-Feldmane noted. “Everyone's desire is direct public transport from where they live to the desired destination, but here we need to understand these resources - both the number of vehicles and the resource of drivers.”
The route changes have been approved and there is no reason to expect another route to link Central station and Ķīpsala in the near future, said Rīgas Satiksme.
