Book about Riga public transport published
A significant event for Riga public transport employees and all transport enthusiasts – a book by Andris Biedriņš and Edvīns Liepiņš, “Rīgas sabiedriskais transports no 19.gs. vidus līdz mūsdienām” (“Riga public transport from mid-19th century until nowadays), was published.
The book is a result of three-year co-operation between Riga municipal company “Rīgas satiksme” and the “Latvian Industrial Heritage Foundation” and is a reference material about Riga urban passenger transport.
“Our company was established in 2003, when two bus depots, “Imanta” and “Tālava”, merged, and now it is almost 13 years old. Yet Riga public transport, of course, has a much longer history, which so far has been studied and is known only partly. Now a book is published which will fill in this gap,” says Leons Bemhens, chairman of “Rīgas satiksme” board.
“We tried to gather in our study information about Riga urban public transport which can be found in various sources, from the first horse-drawn omnibus dating back to the middle of the 19th century until nowadays, when Riga can boast a well-developed public transport network and the most up-to-date electric transport in the Baltic States,” the authors write in the book’s preface.
This is the second book written by A. Biedriņš and E. Liepiņš. The first one, "Latvijas industriālā mantojuma ceļvedis", (“Latvian Industrial Heritage Guide”), was published in 2002.
The existing and former employees of “Rīgas satiksme”, particularly technical specialists, were very helpful in writing the book, and the historic materials from the collection of “Rīgas satiksme” were also useful.
In the process of writing the book the authors used unpublished materials from archives, museums and private collections – construction drawings, photos, city plans, different concepts, as well as ideas and projects that were not implemented. They also used already published materials, including some studies about history of public transport, newspaper and magazine articles. The book has 374 pages and more than 800 units of illustrative materials – pictures, schemes, drawings, tables etc. There is also a historic survey of the key events of Riga public transport history from 1851 till 2014.
Starting from Thursday, December 10, the book will be sold in all customer service centres of “Rīgas satiksme”: at Brīvības Street 49/53, 191 and 384b, Prāgas Street 1, Spīķeru Street 1, Kurzemes Avenue 137 and Vienības gatve 117a. Price of the book - 10,80 EUR.
For more information about the services provided by "Rīgas satiksme", public transport routes and schedules, types of tickets and other news, please visit our webpage at www.rigassatiksme.lv or social networks "twitter", "facebook", "draugiem.lv".
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