Riga City Council supports discounts for all passengers of Riga public transport
As reported earlier, on February 6 Minister of Environment Protection and Regional Development Einārs Cilinskis and Chairman of Riga City Council Nils Ušakovs held a meeting where they reached an agreement on fare discounts for all passengers of Riga public transport.
The Ministry of Environment Protection and Regional Development and Riga City Council agreed to draw up amendments to the law «On Local Governments» in order to revise the list of functions assigned to Riga as the Republic of Latvia capital and to offer solutions for funding these functions, including the price of tickets in public transport. The parties have also agreed that a new law on equalization of finances of local governments is to be developed in order to compensate Riga for the expenditures related with fulfilling the functions to be defined in the planned amendments.
As it is impossible to make amendments to this year’s State budget anymore, both E. Cilinskis and N.Ušakovs believe that the amendments to standard acts may come into force in 2015.
In this situation, Riga City Council is ready to allocate necessary funds from the city budget to provide a 50% discount from the single ticket’s cost price, i.e. the tariff of EUR 0.60, for both Rigans and residents of other local governments.
Vadims Baraņņiks, chairman of the Riga City Council’s Committee for Traffic and Transport Affairs, believes that these discounts will also further the attendance of many events of Riga European Capital of Culture 2014: „There will be several mega-events this summer, including, for instance, the World Choir Olympics and others, which will gather many participants and viewers. The discounts set by Riga City Council will make Riga city transport more affordable for both residents and guests of the city, providing the most favourable conditions for visiting the cultural events.”
Information prepared by the Public Relations Section of Riga City Council.
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