Europe travel guide

Four-day traffic jams at Russian - Latvian border

Anyone planning a road tour of the Baltics should stay well away from the Russian-Latvian border. Four-day traffic jams for lorries have now become the norm as trade between the two countries has soared. The poor road network can no longer cope with the volume of traffic.

The turnover of goods between Russia and the EU is rising by up to 15% each year and a lot of it is carried by lorries across the Latvian border but customs capacity has not grown to meet the demand. Drivers now expect to queue for at least three days as the line of vehicles tails back to tens of kilometres.

The gigantic traffic jams began in August last year and, as we appraoch August 2007, it has got worse rather than better. Measures have been agreed to improve matters including a new motorway between Riga and Moscow as well as an extra border checkpoint. There are slao likely to be more airline flights between Latvia and Russia. Currently flights are only available to Moscow, St Petersburg and Kaliningrad.

This article was written for TravelSavvy Europe by Robert Allcock. If you know of an interesting European travel related news story, please get in contact.